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AT&T, Tethering, Data and my other devices
By Derek | March 9, 2011
So, today I bit the bullet and gave up my iPhone 5GB “unlimited” data plan with AT&T. Previously, I was grandfathered into the “unlimited” plan, from the early days of the original iPhone. I looked back at my data usage since I upgraded to my iPhone 4, and only once have I gone over 1GB. Most months I’m around 0.3GB (300MB).
Separately, I had purchased a Clear iSpot to use for my Wifi-only iPad. This was a low-cost way to get my iPad on the internet when I wasn’t at home. $25 per month, and I got access to Clear’s “4G” network, anywhere it was available. Not a bad deal, really. My monthly usage was around 0.3 – 0.4GB (300-400MB) per month. Of course, their network wasn’t available outside of larger cities, and even though I don’t travel much, it wasn’t very useful outside of Loop 1604.
I added “Personal Hotspot” to my iPhone data plan, which technically changes it to “$45 per month iPhone 4GB DataPro with Tethering” … this allows me to cancel my iSpot, and save a few bucks. So, add $15 to my AT&T plan, subtract $25 from my Clear plan (actually, I will just cancel it).
In addition to that, while doing research on this, I noticed that I didn’t really use my 900 minutes a month on my voice plan. I mean, really, I had over 6,500 Rollover minutes. Turns out I use around 200 “Anytime” minutes a month. So, I changed my voice plan down to 450 minutes a month, thus saving me another $20 per month.
So, here’s how it breaks down for me…
Before:
After:
The benefits I get out of this are the fact that my personal hotspot can now run my computer, not just my iDevices, like the iSpot, my phone gets charged continuously when I drive my car, and I don’t have to carry yet another device (the iSpot). Oh, and all for the low, low price of saving $30 per month!
Topics: Apple, Me, Technology | No Comments »
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