The usual answer to this is "it depends", which is true and completely useless. Here are some numbers.
What uses what
These are approximate and meant for estimating:
| Activity | Usage |
|---|---|
| An hour of navigation | around 5 to 10 MB |
| A hundred messages with photos | around 30 to 50 MB |
| An hour scrolling Instagram | 300 to 600 MB |
| An hour of video calling | 300 to 500 MB |
| An hour of high quality video | 1 to 2 GB |
| Downloading a boarding pass | a few MB |
Notice something: maps, messaging and email use almost nothing. The idea that navigation eats data comes from an era when maps reloaded every few kilometres.
A typical day
- Maps, messages and email: 100 to 200 MB a day.
- Plus social scrolling: 300 to 500 MB a day.
- Filming, posting and video calls home: 700 MB to 1.2 GB a day.
- Working from a tethered laptop: 1.5 GB a day and up.
Translated into plans
For seven days:
- 1 GB works only if you are on Wi-Fi most of the day. Realistically it is a long weekend plan.
- 3 GB covers a week for someone using maps, messaging and moderate social.
- 5 GB is the safe choice for a week of active sightseeing.
- 10 GB is what you need if you film daily, tether, or work.
The three biggest consumers
1. Video autoplay. Social apps play video the moment it appears on screen. Ten minutes of aimless scrolling can use more than a full day of navigation. Every one of those apps has a data saver setting. Turn it on before you travel.
2. Photo backup. Your phone quietly uploads every picture to the cloud. After a day at the beach that is hundreds of megabytes you spent without looking at the screen. Set backup to Wi-Fi only.
3. Tethering a laptop. Laptops run system updates, sync folders and keep tabs refreshing. A couple of hours of work can take a gigabyte.
Making a plan last
- Download the offline map of the region before you go. It works with no data at all.
- Download music and episodes while on Wi-Fi.
- Turn on the phone data saver mode.
- Use voice instead of video calls when seeing each other is not the point.
- Leave app updates for Wi-Fi.
Why your phone counter and the plan disagree
Sooner or later you will notice the phone reporting a different number from the plan. Both are right; they count differently.
A phone counts what the operating system hands to apps. The network counts what actually crossed the air interface, which includes retransmissions and protocol overhead. Phone counters also reset on their own schedule, sometimes monthly, sometimes when a profile is switched off and on.
Use the account view as the number that matters, and treat the phone counter as a rough second opinion.
One week versus two
Usage is not linear across a trip. The first two days are the heaviest, because everything is unfamiliar and you look everything up. By day five you know the neighbourhood, you have downloaded the maps, and the phone quietly stops working so hard.
That is why a two week trip rarely needs double a one week plan. Somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8 times is closer to reality for most people.
Travelling as a pair or a group
Two people rarely need two plans. One phone with a hotspot covers a couple comfortably, as long as the person carrying it does not mind the battery drain.
For a group of four it is usually better to have two plans on two phones. Not for the data, but because one phone with everyone connected becomes a single point of failure the moment its battery dies or its owner walks off.
When in doubt, size up
If you are torn between two plans, take the larger one. The price gap between 3 and 5 GB is small. The gap between having data and not having data on day three of a holiday is not.
And if you do run out, most plans can be topped up from your account with no reinstall. It is just nicer not to think about it while you are away.
Topics
- data
- planning
- tips
