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New Speakout Data Plan
November 18, 2013
1:35 pm
TSellers
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Being unable to cap the expenditure is unacceptable.

Agreed. I have had my Spouse's phone on data plan for 10 days. The Miui Android ROM she is using just seems to collect all the data traffic, so the only option is to keep checking the SO website to monitor data use, which is real annoying. Does anyone have a data monitoring app they can recommend?

November 18, 2013
7:18 pm
46jimbo
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I''m using My Data Manager

November 18, 2013
8:14 pm
TSellers
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I'll check that out, thanks for the suggestion!

November 18, 2013
8:35 pm
fefrie
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tom@bronwenandtom.com said:

SO is for budget conscious consumers, there are no budget conscious features here. They're badly misread their market.


SO is hardly a 'budget' provider. You get towers as reliable as Rogers, and pay a premium to use them at 25c/min.

SO is a 'Limited use" provider. Don't use it much, and they won't ding you for it.

You'll like Wind. If you use their Pay your way plan, you get unlimited use for EVERYTHING after you use more than $2/day. Granted that's $60/month if you were to use your phone that often, but still, that's a great capped expense.

Granted, you only get 5gb/month per sim card, but theoretically, you could get 30 wind sim cards and for $60/month, you would get 150gb. As soon as your card got throttled back, you'd just put in a new sim card.

And what's even better, you can use PYW services for roaming across Canada and USA for rates as good as if you had a monthly plan.

Too bad you missed the unlimited incoming free feature. They just grandfathered it.

Now that I use unlimited incoming I also get 1c/min outgoing.

Data is expensive at $1/mb, but here in Vancouver, there is free wireless almost everywhere, and if you use Shaw Open, then yes it's basically on any major business street.

Voice is dead. Data is the new overlord.

Bow down to the new Data Overlords and open your wallets.

November 18, 2013
10:19 pm
chimpanzee
vancouver
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not sure i agree the 'reliable rogers' in vancouver, my roaming sim almost always pick up bell/telus now that my phone supports UMTS and my SO sim sucks battery faster than bell/telus too.

November 22, 2013
12:02 pm
Tony
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Any strategies for shutting down background data usage on Android phones? Turning data off isn't desirable, but maybe some background processes that use data can be throttled down.

So far, SO is the best bet for my low use talk situation, maybe 10-15 minutes talk per month. The data is handy. To try and keep within the $10/100 MB limit, my biggest risk in the email program downloading email and attachments in the background. Currently am using the Android email app but will change to gmail. If I understand how gmail works, it downloads only the email headers until I open a message then downloads the text. Attachments aren't downloaded unless I click on them, correct? So If only open gmail messages I need to read, the data consumption should be low.

On my non-SO android phone that is on Telus, I use about 20 MB/day in background data.

November 22, 2013
2:57 pm
46jimbo
Toronto
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I'm also interested in hearing a knowledgeable answer to this question

November 22, 2013
5:55 pm
espresso
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On Android, if you go to your Settings -> Data Usage -> Settings (three dots) -> Restrict background data that will get all your apps from using your data to get data in the background.

Another option is to do it app by app. In the same Data Usage screen you have all the usage of your apps and you can click on the app and see the usage from the Foreground or Background and then 'Restrict background data'. This second option allows you to have some apps continue to use background data, but is way more time consuming to restrict the data usage.

Good luck.

November 23, 2013
8:06 am
46jimbo
Toronto
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Good info! Thanks.

November 25, 2013
2:47 pm
netyang
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Does somebody know the new data support LTE or not? thanks

November 26, 2013
2:29 am
bridonca
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I am going to say no. I do believe you need a special SIM card for LTE, and as far as I know, Speakout is not supplying them.

December 4, 2013
10:05 am
XR4Ti
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So when does UMB end? I got an SMS a week ago (a week before my month was up) saying "Your Add On has retired." but on the website it still showed the days and counted down. Then today (the expiry) I was docked $10 and got the renewal msg. My profile still says Unlimited Browsing, this time expiring in Jan. During this time browsing continues to work just fine. Anyone know what's going on? Does UMB continue to survive?

December 5, 2013
5:35 am
NomoreUMB
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No, you will get a text message telling you that your next renewal will be $10 for 100MB.

Party is over.

The reason why they cannot have Unlimited browsing is because of the new Rules stating that "Any wireless services that are described as "UNLIMITED" must be unlimited and have no additional charges"

December 5, 2013
11:42 am
TSellers
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My spouse was overly cautious and now has 74MB left with only 2 days to go. Does anyone know if this carries over to the next month?

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December 5, 2013
2:11 pm
46jimbo
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No it doesn't. She will start afresh with 100 mb.

December 5, 2013
8:28 pm
TSellers
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Sigh... I thought it would be too much to hope for. I told her to tether her tab and do lots of browsing today. Thanks for the info on that.

December 7, 2013
12:18 am
leonheartx
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are you guys able to get wireless hotspot/tethering to work? I can connect to the created hotspot network, but the 2nd device cannot do anything that requires data.

December 7, 2013
12:39 am
TSellers
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I've only tried a couple of times and done limited data use, but I think it worked OK. I just had to set a second phone up today with the SO data plan and tethering, will try that and see how it goes. Shame, my spouse ended the month with 74MB left over, would have been good to use it up by testing the tethering but I never thought of it in time.

December 10, 2013
8:17 pm
Tony
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TSellers said:

My spouse was overly cautious and now has 74MB left with only 2 days to go. Does anyone know if this carries over to the next month?


What did your spouse do to get her data usage down to 26 MB for the month? I believe I've reduced the data usage on my wife's Nexus S to a minimum but according to Android's data usage monitor the phone is still using about 68 MB/week which is too much for the 100 MB/month plan. I'll check again and see what I can shut down.

December 10, 2013
9:27 pm
TSellers
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My intent was for her to be able to tether her 8" Android tablet to check email, etc. During this past month she has not left town for anything so there has been no real need to use data. When she goes to work, she is in three or four different buildings during the week, but at all of them she has internet access, so on her breaks she checks her email (and of course the critical FB posts) from them instead of using her phone. Apparently, for the few times she did use her phone, she turned data on, and then turns it off again right away. Therefore no apps have any chance to check email, etc. And as I was told, her surplus balance was zeroed out at the end of the month which also sucks. I, on the other hand, just enabled the SO data plan for my personal phone. It had been sitting dormant for 7 months and it did not appear to be working yet. It also irked me that although I had a balance of $127.00, I still had to top the account up to enable the data plan because it expired in 3 weeks. So just in the process of getting data to work and testing it, I used up 4MB. I have to go to Calgary on Thursay and while there will probably need to tether my tablet a few times to do email, etc., and I wouldn't be surpised if I use up half my data in a day at that rate. I think I'm going to end up like others have reported here and simply forget that data plan. After seeing my work pay a penny/MB for the exact same data service that I have to pay 10X more for is just too much to stomach, it really does not make you a Rogers fan that's for sure.