Friday, September 5, 2014

Internet blues

We are having some serious issues with our internet access.  As I said we got back to the US on 9/3, and reconnected to the world:-)  Actually we turned our MiFi back on, and our phones as we reentered the states.  As a review, we have a MiFi from Millenicom that is a 20GB/month plan through Verizon.  It has the benefit of no contract, and can be turned on and off at will.  We back that up with data through our iPhones that are with AT&T.  Now here is the rub, we turned on the MiFi, did our catching up, email, web browsing, blog post, etc, and splurged by streaming 2 standard definition TV shows, and used 13.2GB in 24 hours!!!!!!!!!  We are at a loss as to how you can use that much data in such a short time.  Millenicom has given some examples of high data use, online gaming-NO, HD streaming videos and movies-NO, audio streaming-NO, large software updates-NO, and Cloud file sharing-MAYBE.  We use iCloud for backup and syncing our devices together, but we have been using it for a long time, and it's only been recently that our usage is skyrocketing.  And I have to admit I don't fully understand the iCloud usage, does it use tons of data when we download 200 pictures to iPhoto on the computer and they also go to the iPad?  These are rhetorical questions, but if some one can answer any of these questions it would be appreciated.

This is one of the challenges of living like we do.  When you have internet in your home, it is unlimited, you can browse, stream movies, play music,  etc to your heart's content, but out here not the case.  We are absolutely dependent on the internet as it is our pathway to correspondence, banking, research, etc.  We need to figure this out going forward as it is chopping a big hole in our budget, as the MiFi service is $89.99/month for 20GB, and if you go over it is another $89.99 for another 20GB, adds up in a hurry!

Just a little venting as we work through this issue, please feel free to comment, explain some of this stuff to me, or even suggest some alternatives going forward.

4 comments:

Sandy Smith said...

Ahhh, 200 pictures in raw at 12-15 meg per is about 2.5 to 3 gig. Add the jpg ones at say 5 meg each, there's another 1 gig. A 480i T.V., 1 hour, show is about 4-5 gig.

Bill said...

So if I understand correctly, the transfer of the pics from the computer to the iPad would eat all data up? I had no idea a TV show ate that kind of data! Live and learn, so when I see you we will have to talk about solutions to our problem. Thanks.

sandy said...

Are you uploading the photos to the cloud then to the iPad?

I would load the photos into your laptop via hard cable from the camera or card reader, then pick the ones out to go to the ipad. Then hard wire connect the laptop to the ipad to transfer the photos.

Bill said...

I think that's what we will have to do going forward. Up to now we share the cloud photos on both iPhones, iPad, and computer. We plan to turn off that feature on both phones, hard transfer what we want, then do exactly what you suggest with the iPad. Pisses me off to give up such functionality though.