5GB Limit for Unlimited Prepaid Plan

by Lance Choun
(Dallas, TX)

I am planning to get a prepaid wireless access card to use for video conferencing (Messenger or Skype). How do I know how much data is being used?

Comments for 5GB Limit for Unlimited Prepaid Plan

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Apr 21, 2009
 Monitoring Wireless Data Usage
by: PrepaidWirelessGuy

Monitoring data usage is definitely a wise idea. While you don't have to worry about huge overage bills like you would with postpaid, you definitely don't want to run out of data mid-Skype/Messenger conversation! You also don't want to continually reload your prepaid account only to find that you're spending way more money than you had intended to in a given week or month.


Although I haven't yet had the opportunity to try all of the prepaid services, from my experience, you can monitor your total usage online by logging into your prepaid account.


Typically the session manager that's used to connect the card/modem to the Internet will show your data usage. However, it usually shows only the data used during that particular session, and not the sum of the data you've used over multiple sessions/days. A sessions is basically when you use the connection manager to connect and then disconnect. Disconnection always occurs when you shut down your computer.


Especially when you first start using wireless data, it's definitely a good idea to monitor how much data certain activities take. For example, before you start a Skype session, check how much data the connection manager has used, or go online and check your current account data usage balance. Then, after you finish the Skype sessions, check the data usage on the connection manager or online to see how much you've used. You'd be surprised how quickly you'll become familiar with how much data different activities consume.


After you have some experience with prepaid broadband, definitely please report back to us in the Reviews section!

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