What are Mobile Data Services?

"Mobile Data Services" is a term to represent a bunch of different applications you can use on the mobile phone.

Examples include ...
  • Surfing the web
  • Using email
  • Downloading games or applications
  • Downloading videos or ringtones
  • Using network features within games or applications - eg playing against another player, or doing a share price check
  • Watching Web TV
It doesn't include ...
  • Sending or recieving SMS Text or Multi-Media MMS messages
  • Sending or recieving data via Bluetooth
  • Sending or recieving data via InfraRed (IR)
  • Using 3G Broadband services
  • Using Wireless (Wifi) network services

Why do I want it?

Some of the things you can do with Mobile Data Services ...
  • Use Satelitte Navigation systems for directions
  • Send and recieve emails and instant messages
  • Browse Internet pages whilst away from the home or office
  • Use a mobile application to perform a share price check
  • Play a video game against or with someone else in real-time

What is a Meg?

For the purposes of this site a meg is short for a Megabyte, which is a measurement of the data being transfered between the remote web site and your mobile phone. A single character (either a number or a letter) takes up one byte. A Megabyte is 1 million bytes (* In fact it's because this is binary it's actually 1,024 x 1,024 or 1,048,576 bytes, but don't let that worry you !).

A Kilobyte (or simply 'K' or 'KB') is 1,024 bytes.

Mobile network operators typically (but not always) charge for services based on the Megabytes transferred in a specified period (day/week/month).

See Wikipedia for a detailed explaination of bytes, kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes.

Data within pictures, video, ringtones, and any other "packet" of information is part of the data usage. This also includes the presentation markup (WML, HTML, etc) and client-side scripting such as Javascript or Flash.

The usage calculator on the Schedule Builder pages use the following asumptions ...
  • a mobile internet (WAP) page - 8 KB
  • a regular (HTML) web page - 25 KB
  • a regular plain text email - 3 KB
  • a HTML Email - 25 KB
  • an email with one file attachment - 1 MB
  • a mobile sound track (such as ringtone) - 1 MB
  • an MP3 music track - 3½ MB
  • a video clip - 4 MB (for every 2 minutes of video)
  • a 1-Megapixel photo - 580 KB
  • a 4-Megapixel photo - 1½ MB
All of these apply regardless if you are uploading (copying information to the web or sending emails) or downloading (copying information from the phone to your mobile or recieving emails).

How do I keep track of my usage?

The bad news is that (as with the web) not only is it very rare to be informed of the size of a download in advance, but not all phones keep track of what you've actually transferred either.

As a result, it is often when your credit runs out or you get your next bill that you find out how much you've actually used !!!!