Question- GB > MB wireless laptop modems

[Veronica]

Ok, heres the problem.. I am gonna have to do school work on my laptop at work and I am needing to buy a wireless modem from a phone company to use while there.. so heres the thing..
They offer a 50 MB one for 39.99 a mo and a 5 GB one for 59.99 a mo. I dont know which one to use. I dont really know how they are counting the MB's.. Does that mean when you get online? I know this is stupid, Ive always had DSL or cable modem, so I dunno what to do... HELP!!!

I dont want to get the lower amount and then go over.. because they will charge me .25 PER mb that you go over.

 

[NicAuf]

I would def. go with the 5 GB plan

 

[TheOriginalJames]

the gigabyte plan allows for faster surfing. MB < GB as far as speed is concerned. The extra 20 a month will be worth it.

 

[Tim]

It's not speed, it's the amount of data you can upload/download in a given month.

You would need to see how much you will be using it, what type of data/files you will be uploading and downloading. The size and frequency of emails... etc,

ask the school how much data you need to transfer, they should let you know how much you will need in a given month. It will at least give you a ball park number to start with.

 

[Veronica]

well it wont be online classes.. I just figured I could get some of my work done while I am at work.. Not that I would actually be doing the class online, if that makes sense.

 

[Zorak]

50 megabytes a month seems awfully low for $39.99

 

[Tim]

50 megabytes a month seems awfully low for $39.99

I agree. But $60/month is a lot of extra cash for just doing school work.
If she doesn't use bandwidth hungry sites like youtube or downloads pictures/files then she can save herself that extra $20/month... it's a tough call. If she only uses it for her school work while she is at work, then the cheaper plan should work out for her.

I think it's all a racket anyway... damned phone companies ripping us off...

 

[Zorak]

I agree. But $60/month is a lot of extra cash for just doing school work.
If she doesn't use bandwidth hungry sites like youtube or downloads pictures/files then she can save herself that extra $20/month... it's a tough call. If she only uses it for her school work while she is at work, then the cheaper plan should work out for her.

I think it's all a racket anyway... damned phone companies ripping us off...

I agree whole heartedly.

I also agree that it's a racket lol, what's it like over there in terms of the phone companies? Is there competition?

Here there are a few phone companies, but the entire nations telecommunications are privatley owned by one - British Telecom. Which is a fucking disgrace because the government handed them over in the "privatisation" of national services fad during the 80's. It didn't work for our trains or buses (God help you if you want to use public transport to get anywhere on time) and it hasn't worked for our phone lines.
Now BT can upgrade\repair lines as they see fit, which of course means if you are a BT customer they will do it ASAP. But if you get your phone/internet service from another provider...... :thumbdown

 

[ssl]

Given: a) 50 MB for $40; b) 5 GB for $60 -> 5000 MB for $60.

Broken down:

50 / 40 = 5 / 4 = 1.25 MB per dollar
5000 / 60 = 500 / 6 = 250 / 3 = 83.33333~ MB per dollar

83.333 MB per dollar > 1.25 MB per dollar.

This is clearly a scam. There is too much difference between both plans.

 

[Tim]

Given: a) 50 MB for $40; b) 5 GB for $60 -> 5000 MB for $60.

Broken down:

50 / 40 = 5 / 4 = 1.25 MB per dollar
5000 / 60 = 500 / 6 = 250 / 3 = 83.33333~ MB per dollar

83.333 MB per dollar > 1.25 MB per dollar.

This is clearly a scam. There is too much difference between both plans.

Check your math again...

for the first plan it's running $.80/MB or like you put it 1.25MB/dollar
and the second plan is costing $.01/MB or 85.35MB/dollar

There are 5120MB per GB not 5000

 

[ssl]

Check your math again...

for the first plan it's running $.80/MB or like you put it 1.25MB/dollar
and the second plan is costing $.01/MB or 85.35MB/dollar

There are 5120MB per GB not 5000

You need to check your math:

5120MB per GB would yield 25600MB, if V went for the 5GB plan.

If you pay attention to the industry, there was an issue with addressing and marketing. A 500GB hard drive is not reported as 500 GB in Windows. The issue: Windows uses 2^n addressing, while manufacturers use 10^n addressing. Therefore, a GB in Windows is 2 ^ 10 MB, versus the GB from manufacturer's being 10 ^ 3.

The result: 1024 MB to 1000 MB.

The long term result: the 2^n notation was renamed to *ebi, such as MebiByte, denoted as MiB, GiB.

So, for your example, 1024 MiB per GiB would result in 5120 MiB; versus my calculations where 1000 MB per GB would result in 5000 MB.

Confusing, is it not?