How long should 50GB last?

[CarterUSM]

Hi

I have a pay as you go SIM card. On two recent occasions, I have topped up (the first time with £10, and just a couple of days ago with £5). As a rule, I only ever try to use free wifi, rather than consume mobile data.

So I was rather peturbed when I discovered that my account balance had on both occasions reduced to zero very quickly. I’d checked that my phone settings were such that all apps on my phone were only accessible through wifi, rather than using mobile data; and that I had adjusted my phone settings to prevent internet access via the network, enabling access through free wifi only. (Admittedly I did make one brief international phone call, and turned on mobile data for a brief period.)

I resolved to try and contact Three to ask if they were able to provide an itemised breakdown by GB usage and cost for my data usage. The only practical means of communication appears to be their live chat facility. Perhaps understandably they cannot provide itemised breakdowns for PAYG customers.

I think my current PAYG tariff is 10p per MB (I think I’m on an older tariff), so given this, this implies that a £5 top-up buys me 50MB of data. So I asked how long (i.e. how many minutes/seconds) in terms of internet usage on the phone, could I expect to get for 50MB of data. The guy was unable to assist me and tried to persuade me to sign up to a contract; I explained I would consider it, but would need an answer to my query before I came to a decision. After 40 minutes, I explained I had to sign off and asked him for a transcript of our chat (which I never received).

(I had a look at the various add-ons on offer. Compared with their add-on charges, Three’s basic PAYG top-up rates would appear to be exorbitantly expensive, and I might be better off biting the bullet and buying an add-on instead).

To cut a long story short - disregarding the fact that trying to get info out of Three is like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone - assuming I only use free wifi, how long should I reasonably expect a top-up equating to 50MB to last? Is it possible to put any kind of ballpark figure on this?

Very many thanks in anticipation of your assistance.

[sc1999]

You are asking for the length of a piece of string. However, out of curiosity I installed a data usage app and a Google search, opening an item in the eBay and Amazon apps used 4-5Mb. So, depending on whether you open pages with or without images I would say that 50Mb would not get you far. Opening outlook and reading 4 emails used 2Mb.

Once-upon-a-time 50Mb was huge now it's only a short video or a few medium sized images. Try an app like My Data Manager and it will give you an app usage history showing both Wi-Fi and mobile data. A few views and searches on Amazon is showing as 27.6Mb. You can set Outlook so it does not download images and you can do the same with some browsers. Go to your phone settings and make sure you don't have apps running in the background otherwise they may use data as soon as they are allowed.

[Avondale]

@CarterUSM 

What handset are you using ? If you are on Android, Settings/Apps might be able to tell you how much data each app has used recently. It certainly does on a Samsung Galaxy device.