well.... my Verizon contract is up, and I am seriously considering getting a refurbished 3gs but am now kicking myself for not doing it years ago, as now I will have to deal with 2gb of data.... I used att's data calculator, but that doesn't seem to really paint a real world picture of usage. What do you iphone owners think?

My main concern is that I wanted to be able to stream slacker radio at will on 3g for road trips, or those times when I find myself bored and NOT at wifi... clearly this doesn't seem to be possible. I don't use facebook or any other social networking, but I imagine I would be sending more picture emails/texts to people now that I will have a decent camera on the iphone, and I will be checking emails (10 text emails a day maybe) and be surfing the web profusely. Needless to say I am worried about going over the 2gb.... anyone use att wifi hotspots to help lessen the data usage?

I've also looked into taking over someone's existing contract through cellswap and celltrade, but this feels sketchy and I haven't gotten a reply from anyone I have contacted through those sites. Also, would trying to take over someone's contract (dealing with ATT for the transfer, and accepting the condition of the phone from who I take it over from) be worth it get the unlimited data, AND thats assuming ATT would allow that anyway..... as you can tell, I'm sort of lost... any help or musings will certainly be welcome.
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I have a 3Gs and it works great. Get the 3G plan, and I have no problems with data or storage. I have 300+ songs, stream Pandora, surf the net, use Facebook and I check email at will. I really wouldn't worry about it, but I have the 32 GB iPhone so I don't know about the 8GB or the 16GB but I can't imagine it being a problem
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I think he means 2gb per month data usage. Not data storage.
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I am a fairly heavy user but don't do much streaming at all. I was using around 800 mb before I started tethering and about 8 gb after. Streaming hulu and such will add up QUICKLY. Pandora type streaming won't add up as quickly, but do you really want to worry about it? I wouldn't enjoy it if I was worrying about it.

As much as I hate to say it, I really wouldn't want an iPhone without unlimited. Oh, and I even own apple stock and still am not recommending you get the iPhone.
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^^^ yeah, its def. the data plan I am worried about, hell a refurb 3gs 32gb from ATT is 149.00, thats half the price of what the iphone4 32gb is, so thats not an issue. I have to go with an iphone though, no choice there, I have had a 1st gen. ipod touch for 3 years or so and I like the interface waaayyy to much to go anything else. Guess I have to suck it up and go for it and use wifi way more than I anticipated initially.

I'll go and do all this at the end of this month, and they'll release a verizon iphone next year.:-)
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Yeah the ala carte data plan is scary. I was considering switching until I saw that. One thing I was considered is the wireless hotspot devices with there data plan. Then you would have wifi available instead of using the 3G data.
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Sprint. All you can eat everything for about $60/month... that can't be beat. I have the palm pre and it's my favorite phone ever... they did just release the Evo though and, damn... that 4g makes a difference.
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I have a friend who just got two of them and he says they are already close to their limits as AT&T downloads stuff at night and doesn't use the wireless access point to do it.
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i stream quite a bit and haven't really gone over the 1gb mark. Its usually just audio feeds I stream so I'm not sure how Slingbox viewer would affect that usage. What is it if you go over the 2gb? I think like an extra $10 for another GB right?
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Both my wife and I are iPhone 4 owners. When we had the 3GS previously (this was before we did any tethering) we were well under 2GB's even though we had the unlimited plans. My wife doesn't use data too much but I am a HEAVY user. I stream music constantly as well as check social sites, CA, news sites etc etc many times throughout the day. I use the email feature to keep up with and send out emails from 3 different accounts.

I think you'd probably be fine, but that's just my opinion. Personally, I couldn't imagine not having the unlimited especially now that we tether my wife's iPad.
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Me too. I can't believe they aren't doing unlimited anymore. I'm so glad I got mine a couple months ago and got grandfathered in!
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I stream Pandora quite a bit and can hit 2GB in a month easily.
Luckily for me, I am on an unlimited plan.

During the non-Pandora months I was always at or near 150-250MB.
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thanks for the real world input everybody. I think I am going to go for it either way, and although I'm fairly confident I won't go over, its the worrying about it, and paying ONLY 5.00 less than it would be for unlimited really burns my ass.... oh well, can't help it now.
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I believe that was part of the deal to allow a Netlfix app for the iPhone (as well as other similar apps.)
It is supposed to stream over 3G when it is available.
For this reason I am not getting rid of my unlimited plan.
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I"m an extremely heavy user, I stream not only music but also movies from my servers at home, TV, from Tv.com, Hulu and such, and am almost always over 2gb, and usually close to 4-5 gb.

If you're only surfing the net and streaming mostly audio I wouldn't be worried about it, but if you stream a lot of video it might be a cause for concern.

I have the old unlimited plan, so it's not a concern for me. YMMV.:-)
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Dustin is your phone jailbroken or are you allowed to tether an iphone to an ipad?
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Jailbroken! It steams me pretty bad that Apple won't allow you to tether an iPad to an iPhone, just because they want to sell more 3G iPads.
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If you live where theres WiMax, this be worth looking into:

http://m.gizmodo.com/5604201/clears-...for-apple-gear
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I hear you brother!
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