Wireless cappin’
The what's-what of wireless data limits
Ever received that warning message from your wireless provider telling you you’re close to your monthly data limit? You might think, “Whoa, that was close,” or more likely, “What? we’re only halfway through the month.” The recently launched whatismycap.com wants to help you keep your data in check. The site, which is backed by dot-orgs like Mozilla, Open Source Democracy Foundation, and Public Knowledge, gives an easy-to-use chart of the four major wireless carriers and their data plans. For example, if you choose Verizon as your carrier, you’ll see that there’s a data cap of 2GB per month, and you’ll have to pay an extra $10 for each additional gigabyte, if you go over.
The site also tries to approximate how much data-greedy functions might zap from your monthly allotment. In the Verizon scenario, you can watch 2 HD movies or 3 hours of TV or listen to 27 albums before reaching your cap. There’s also a nifty little calculator that figures out how much it will cost you to watch more video. You might want to let little Joey know that watching “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” with his buddies after school just cost $20. That’s a lot of bananas.