It's good to run tests and put things on a shakedown cruise. Just because the smartphone is new... that makes it an unknown. Here's another unknown... I have 6GB of data on it that I can download before I incur overage charges. When I lasted used a PCMCIA cellular expansion card in my previous laptop on Sprint, it took me downloading 29 seasons of television shows to rack up an $800 bill in a single month mostly overage charges.
Verizon doesn't have unlimited data packages, so that's why I pay for a additional 6GB package. And they have several lower ones, too. I chose 6 because I was guessing what the phone and laptop would need down trail. But since I wasn't paying attention last time, I really don't know how much it would take it get to, or exceed that 6? At the moment, I haven't even broken the 1GB mark yet, but judging by where I'm at now, I expect to do so at the end of this month...
But not 6. My cable Internet package here in the office is not measured in "gigabytes," or the total you can download, but in "gigabits," which is a measurement used to describe how wide the channel of information. And the amount of information one could download on those is usually unlimited. With the smartphone, that's not the case.
So a test needs to be done. I have a usage meter widget on my smartphone. And what I need to do is hotspot, or wirelessly connect my three other computers to my smartphone's Internet for about a week or so to see what it would take to get to get close to maxing out. And I'll do this at the end of the month and stop it about 0.3GB shy of the limit so the smartphone still has some of the package left to get by for a few days. Having this experience will allow me to know exactly what I can do it down trail when the hotspot becomes the primary Internet connection. And if I don't run an expirament like this, I could wind up in "hot water" simply by being ignorant.
