What is data?
Data is a way of measuring how much you use the internet. Understanding data can help you choose the right home or mobile internet plan for your needs.
Kinds of data
The internet is a service that can give you lots of different kinds of content that all use data to be displayed. Some common types of internet content include:
- web pages
- emails
- eBooks
- movies and TV shows
- photos
- music, radio, and podcasts.
How data is delivered
Content from the internet is transferred to your phone, tablet, laptop, desktop computer or other device in the form of data.
- At home, a network box called a router uses Wi-Fi to share data from the internet between different devices.
- Away from home, a mobile phone tower uses the mobile phone network to share data from the internet to different devices.
How to buy data
Data comes as part of a home internet or mobile internet plan. When you buy an internet plan from an internet service provider (ISP) you will get some special equipment to go with your plan:
- For a home internet connection, you will receive a special box called a router.
- For a mobile internet connection, you can purchase a mobile phone as part of the package, or you can simply buy the plan and use a mobile phone you already have.
- Your plan will include a connection to the internet and an account with a service provider.
- All plans include an amount of data you can use each month to get content from the internet
You can purchase a home or mobile data plan from an internet service provider in a few ways, including over the phone, from their website or from a shop at your local shopping centre.
The data plan
The price of an internet plan usually depends on how much data it includes or how fast the data can be delivered. More data and faster speeds cost more money, but let you do more, more quickly, online.
- A home internet plan usually offers more data for less cost than a mobile internet plan.
- Your ISP keeps count of how much data you use each month.
- ISPs don’t refund money for any data you didn’t use in a month.
- Some mobile service providers may add unused data from one month into the next month. This is often called rollover data.
Which data plan to buy?
It pays to shop around and consider what you do online before choosing a data plan.
- if you hardly use the internet, a small home or mobile data plan is the right fit
- if you do a lot online, you might need the largest home or mobile plan
- call the service provider’s help line or go into the provider’s shop for advice about a plan that suits your needs.
How data is measured
ISPs measure data in amounts called megabytes (MB) and gigabytes (GB). There are almost 1,000 megabytes in a gigabyte. The higher the number of gigabytes, the more data you get. For example, 1GB lets you:
- visit thousands of basic web pages
- send thousands of emails
- listen to 300 songs on internet radio
- watch 30 minutes of internet TV.
What uses up data?
Everything you do online uses data, but some content uses a lot more data than others.
Content that uses hardly any data includes:
- normal web pages
- eBooks, emails, and text messages.
Content that uses a moderate amount of data includes:
- internet radio and music
- high quality photos.
Content that uses a lot of data includes:
- movies from the internet
- TV shows from the internet.