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Hey everyone!
Background – If you followed my previous thread about how wonderful Verizon is, you’ll know I had to buy a phone off contract to retain my unlimited data plan. I got the HTC One M8. Once I got it, a couple of my friends suggested I go out of my way to use as much data as I could. One even suggested I try to hit 50gb of data in once month. At first I thought it was absurd, but after using my phone for the first month, I thought I’d give it a try.
Pre-Project – I will have had my phone through one full billing cycle and about 2/3 of another. In that first 2/3, I used about 13.5gb of data on my M8. Through the second billing cycle, which will end in a couple days, I’m already at 23.5gb.
The main culprits of data usage are: YouTube, I’ve been watching it on my phone a lot lately. Cartoons HD, a free app (not available on the PlayStore) that lets you watch full episodes of TV shows. It mostly features cartoons, but has some others like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. I’ve been using it to watch the latter either on my phone or our flat screen via an MHL cable adapter. Google Play Music, I keep it synced with my iTunes and pretty much play all my music from that. FireFox, my current mobile browser of choice. Speedtest. Spotify and iHeartRadio, which I use to listen to custom music stations.
The Plan – So here’s the rundown on the 50gb Project. I will continue regularly using my 2 big data hogs, YouTube and CartoonsHD. When I’m in my car, I will be streaming music to my stereo via Bluetooth probably from Play Music. I will be using FoxFi to USB tether to my computer to download any big files I need (I keep getting tempted not to though; our ISP just upped our speed to 26mbps…) and watch some videos.
I will be updating here with screenshots of data usage.
Some Science – I will be doing to tests throughout the 50GB Project to fulfill my own curiosity and that of others.
Speed testing: It is well known that Verizon throttles heavy data users on its 3G network, but the company claims that no such throttling occurs on 4G because it isn’t necessary. In the past, I’ve recorded download speeds from around 3mbps up to 50mbps, but they seem to be random and not associated with my data usage. I could probably associate them with when I think the network would be busiest, causing natural slowing of data speeds. Anyways, I will be testing frequently using the Speedtest app or Speedtest.net when I’m tethered to my computer.
Music Apps: I’ve always been curious to see which music app sucks the most data. I will be doing a test once I enter the new billing cycle. I will streaming music for 1 hour for each of the following apps: Google Play Music, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Slacker Radio, and Pandora. The I will compare how much data they each used. Again, I will post results.
I think that’s all for now. Sorry for the long post. If anyone has any suggestions for stuff to test or some really data hungry apps, let me know! And stay tuned for all the 50GB Project action starting May 24th.
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