I got an e-mail yesterday from a user of my blog. I replied to him directly, but since that mail bounced and never got through I hereby put the question and answer here instead, in hope that he (and others) will see it.

Hello there,

I browsed your blog and find DU Meter for PC. Do you know is there any software or widget for checking data usage on Mac?

with regards
[removed]

Thank you for your interest in my blog.

I've looked around and Net Monitor (http://homepage.mac.com/rominar/net.html) seems promising. I haven't got a Mac myself, so I haven't tested this program personally.

I'd be very interested in knowing if it does the job, could you let me know? In such case, I'll put it out there in a blog post for other Mac users to see.

Kind regards,
Christer

In the context of using mobile broadband plans with an upper limit (in this case 5GB), it's useful to have an idea about how much data transfer the different kind of internet media will require. Basically, as a rule of thumb, you can say that the more complex or higher the quality an internet media is, the more data will be transfered when you use it. Below I've tried to divide different types of typical internet media into three categories. The higher the data transfer requirements, the faster you'll be hitting your upper limit on your mobile broadband plan.

• Low data transfer requirements
  • Text chat.
  • Simple web pages (like http://www.google.com frontpage and Google result pages).
  • E-mail with no or small attachments.
• Medium data transfer requirements
  • Low and medium quality sound (mp3's and net radio)
  • Complex or content heavy web pages (for example http://www.nytimes.com/ or http://www.flickr.com/)
  • E-mail with large attachments. 
• High data transfer requirements
  • Video (for example http://www.youtube.com/ and web cam conversations).
  • High quality sound.

The categories given above are just examples. As you can see, an internet media can exist in more than one category, depending on the quality. I have no figures to back up my claims, but if you use media from the "Low" category, you'll almost never run into your 5GB limit. You can use media from the "Medium" category a lot (and I mean a lot!) before reaching the upper limit, but it's possible. You should be more cautious with media from the "High" category: I think I once saw that a 3 hour web cam conversation on Skype used about 0.6GB of combined data transfer of upload and download.  

I hope you find the information above useful! I you have any additions to this subject, you’re welcome to post a comment. Cheers!

I got a question via mail the other day from a user on my blog. The question was about a couple wanting to keep in touch using newly bought netbooks and  Werizon Wireless 5GB plans. The question and answer in many ways can be interesting for all mobile broadband users because it depicts a need and how to handle that need in the context of mobile broadband, so I hereby give you the chance to read the correspondence as well (permisson granted by the user, of course).

Question
Okay so I am totally new to this and came across your information. I was wonderind if you would give me some information. My boyfriend and I just bought Netbooks from Verizon Wireless and are both using Verizon's mobile broadband service on a 5MB a month plan. My boyfriend is working out of town so we though it would be nice to use the built in webcam on the HP netbook to talk to each other. I am wondering if you have a recommendation as to what program we should use to talk to each other? Also how often will we be able to talk to each other without going over? Do most of the webcam programs let you talk and see each other as well? Thank you in advance for your help!

The following is the answer I provided her
Of course - I'd like to help you as far as I can!

The program my girlfriend and I have used successfully from Sweden to Spain is Skype (http://www.skype.com/). It offers high quality voice calls and video calls (with sound of course). And the best part is that Skype-to-Skype user calls are free (they earn money on the calls you might want to place from Skype to normal phones).

You simply create an account each and "connect" online by exchanging usernames (much like any other instant messaging products like MSN and Yahoo! Messenger).

The only downside is, so to say, also the quality because high quality costs in terms of more data traffic. It's hard to say how much you'll be able to speak each month on a 5 GB a month plan. I don't know the exact data usage pr. minute for video calls, for example. But if you mix text chat (which is also possible in Skype), voice calls and video calls you should be able to keep in contact every day (ordered by amount of data needed, less first).

Your data usage pr. month also depends a lot on the usage pattern that you believe to get. For example, my girlfriend and I saw each other every second week, so we had about 10 days apart to counter.

I don't know much about Verizon mobile broadband / Wireless as such, but I'm guessing that you have some sort of software that you use to go online? I suggest you check if there's any statistics function in it. Or maybe Verizon has some pages on their web site on which you can follow your personal data statistics. If you can't find any of these, I suggest you get in contact with Verizon and ask them how you can follow up on your data usage. Having a plan without data usage overview is more or less like driving in the dark, no? ;-)

I you have any additional advice to this question, you’re very welcome to forward them as a comment to this posting or contact me directly if you want. Thanks! :-)