MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5, at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. It's Tech Tuesday. Smartphones used to come with a one-size-fits-all unlimited data plan. You could send photos to your friends, read your email and listen to music, all for a flat fee. Then came the boom in iPhones and Android phones, and cell phone carriers put their customers on a diet.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIMost carriers now offer a choice of plans, each with a monthly limit on data use and a steep fee if you exceed the limit. In response to increasing bill shock from hefty overage fees, the FCC and the cell phone industry announced yesterday that phone companies will start alerting customers when they're about to hit their data, voice and texting limits. But for those of us who aren't quite sure what gigabytes are, let alone how many we'll use each month, choosing a cell phone plan is still a challenge.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIToday, what you need to know about cell phone data use and how to avoid overpaying for more data than you need, and joining us to have that conversation is Wayne Rash, technology journalist with -- and Washington bureau chief of eWeek. Wayne is also a contributing editor of TechWeb. Wayne Rash, good to have you here.

MR. WAYNE RASHThank you very much, Kojo. It's good to be here again.

NNAMDII'm glad you're not our only guest.

RASHI'm glad, too.

NNAMDIBecause...

RASHRob did show up.

NNAMDIRob Pegoraro just walked into the studio. He's a technology writer. What's with the lateness, why you just arrived?

MR. ROB PEGORAROI was trying to re-enact one of my favorite scenes from "Broadcast News," the movie.

NNAMDIOh, I love that movie.

PEGORAROYes.

NNAMDII love that scene, too, but you're not sweating at all.

PEGORAROWell, it's not July.

NNAMDIThis is true. And if you'd like to join this conversation on data limits and avoiding being overcharged, you can call us at 800-433-8850. Send email to kojo@wamu.org. You can send us a tweet, @kojoshow, or email to kojo@wamu.org. Or simply go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there. Rob, in the early days of smartphones, all-you-can-eat data plans were the norm. What caused the shift to a preponderance of limited data plans?

PEGORAROWell, in the early days of smartphones, you wouldn't want to spend too much time online. You had -- you know, you were very proud to have your Treo 650 smartphone, which could display especially formatted mobile sites. It'd be really hard to run up the limit, although, actually, as I recall, I had a limit on my plan back then.

NNAMDIReally?

PEGORAROAnd, yeah, but it was some low cap, and I think the only time I went over it was when I was covering some trade show and hitting the phone all the time. But then this thing called the iPhone came around.

NNAMDIAnd then came video.

PEGORAROAnd it was no longer painful to spend a lot of time on the Web on your mobile device. And some carriers, AT&T, in particular, found themselves getting swamped by all this new demand.

NNAMDIAnd what role does NetFlix -- oh, I should ask you the same question, Wayne.

RASHWell, let's see, I started out -- I've been with T-Mobile for so long that I still have the original unlimited data plan.

NNAMDIOh, really?

PEGORAROI do.

PEGORAROYou can never leave.

RASHWell, you know, it has its advantages. You get low prices, and it's unlimited. And since I use a BlackBerry, I'll never have to worry about coming over it because you can't watch streaming video on a BlackBerry because you'd go blind.

NNAMDIWe'll talk about the BlackBerry later in the course of this broadcast. What role does NetFlix play in data consumption?

RASHWell, they -- I'm...

PEGORAROOn a phone...

NNAMDIEither, or...

PEGORARO...not so much because, again, you know, it's not a huge display device, although, I guess, now there are phones getting up to, like, 4.5" screens. But I think streaming audio, things like Pandora, Slacker, Spotify, those can add up.

NNAMDIYeah. Not too much NetFlix on mobile devices yet.

RASHNo. Although it does exist on some mobile devices. My daughter, who is a college student and therefore -- since she's a computer science major, a true geek, has NetFlix on her Android phone. And if you want to know where this is going, realize that the single biggest source of data traffic on the Internet these days is NetFlix.

NNAMDIOh, yeah.

RASHAnd NetFlix is far above everything else. People start watching movies on their phones. We'll see a lot of results, one of which will be really expanded data use. Of course, some of the other results, will be walking into light posts...

RASH...stepping in front of traffic.

NNAMDIAgain, if you'd like to join the conversation, it's 800-433-8850. Have you ever gone over the limit on your cell phone data plan? What was the damage? 800-433-8850. Wayne, yesterday, the head of the FCC and the Wireless Phone Association said the phone companies will begin warning us, warning customers when we're about to reach our monthly limits on voice, texting and data services and are about to incur international roaming fees. Is this a victory for consumers?

RASHYes, it is. And what's sad is that it's not already being done by some of the companies. Now, some companies -- I know Verizon Wireless, for example, already has this capability in place, and it's available to you. And even better, if you've got kids and your family plan is showing some damage because they're watching movies or texting continuously, you can actually set limits that they cannot exceed. So when they hit the limit, they're done.

RASHSo, yeah, some companies are doing this already. I know when I've traveled overseas, I get a warning that I'm traveling in an area that's going to have international roaming, which I solved by buying another SIM card and just sticking it on my phone and getting...

NNAMDIWell, I once ignored that warning.

PEGORAROUh-oh.

NNAMDIAnd I can't even tell you what the damage was. But, like you, I figured out a way to deal with that in the future. But it may be a victory for consumers, but it's just ahead, I guess, of a ruling by the FCC because the FCC was considering a rule that would have created -- that would have required companies to help consumers avoid surprises in their cell phone bills. So I guess the companies just got ahead of that.

PEGORAROThe whole bill shock thing. Yeah. Some of them had done this. I know when AT&T, they -- they instituted a cap data plan, two gigs, unless you -- I guess you can pay more, I guess, 10 bucks per gigabyte or two gigs.

NNAMDIYep.

PEGORAROYou know, they said, you know, we'll let you know. We'll send you text messages, which won't count against your text message quota, when you're coming up to this point. I think Verizon did the same when they announced their ban with caps earlier this year. But, in other respects, you know, I've heard from lots of people who have been very unpleasantly surprised when they come home from an international trip and ka-ching.

NNAMDIWell, that won't be happening anymore, at least not on a voluntary basis, by the companies. We'll see how that works out. But the warnings won't be in full effect until 2013.

RASHApril 17 of 2013, to be exact.

NNAMDIWhy will it take so long?

RASHYou know, that's always a good question when the FCC sets time limits for things because it's -- as you can tell from the fact that two of the four phone companies have already implemented such warnings, that it can't be all that hard to do. I think it's one of these things when they have some kind of statutory requirements to how fast they can make things happen. But it's the FCC, and they're not always -- you know, it's a large government agency. They take a while sometimes.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones. Here is Larry in Olney, Md. Larry, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

LARRYYes. Kojo or your guests, I'd like to know, if I listen to the -- on my -- I'm about to get a 4i, the 4S, iPhone 4S, and if I listen to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show" on the Web -- on their website, streaming data, how -- what's the rate of data usage that that would use up? How many megabits per minute or whatever?

NNAMDIWell, we actually looked that that up, Larry, and according to the Verizon website, data use for smartphones for audio streaming, 40 megabytes per hour is what you would be using if you are listening to this show. So over the course of two hours, you would be using up 80 megabytes. How does that work for you?

LARRYOh, that sounds great. That sounds -- that's very useful information...

NNAMDIThank you.

LARRY...in sizing my -- you know, my cellular data.

NNAMDII specialize in trivia. Here's Rob Pegoraro.

PEGORAROThat might actually be a conservative -- I guess, an upper estimate for a talk show, where -- none of us is planning to sing right today, right?

NNAMDIYeah, but if there's music involved...

PEGORARORight. Voice -- is it mono? Or is it "The Kojo Show" in HD audio or -- I know when I tested Spotify, I clocked that with a bandwidth meter, and that was running from 40 to 50 megabytes an hour. It depended on the music. As I recall, Rush ate up more bandwidth than, I think, folk music. But, you know, talk radios and lower-fi, that might use less.

NNAMDIWell...

RASHActually, it could use quite a bit less. Voice uses about 6 kilobytes per minute, and it's a pretty low bandwidth. But, you know, there's another way you can do this, and that is, if you have an Android phone versus a 4S, most of those come with FM radios built in. And then you don't use any of your data limit.

NNAMDIThere you go, Larry.

LARRYYeah, I'm kind of whetted to the iPhone, I think.

NNAMDIOkay. Well, thank you very much for your call, Larry. We move on to Micah in Springfield, Va. Micah, your turn.

MICAHHey, how are you guys doing?

NNAMDIDoing well.

MICAHYeah, I have a DROID X2. I'm on Verizon, and I stream music when I'm running. But I still have unlimited data. I've had my plan for four years, and, I guess, since I got it when I signed up originally, I just get to keep it, I guess.

RASHThey do tend to grandfather those plans in, yeah.

NNAMDISo you're like Wayne?

MICAHI signed up with them about four years ago, but, yeah, I use my -- I'm a student right now. So I use my phone to search all the stuff whenever I need to look something up, just -- I Google it right from my phone and makes it pretty convenient.

NNAMDIWell, if you have an unlimited data plan, you are one of the lucky ones if that was grandfathered then. Thank you very much for your call, Micah. Until the new warning start-up, what's the best way for cell phone users to keep track of their own data usage?

RASHYou can look it up. It's on your -- if you go to your website for your carrier, it's going to tell you what your Web -- what your data usage is on a monthly basis. So that's the easiest way. But for some phones, you can also get a bandwidth meter that tells you how much you've been using. And you can download that to your phone, and it will happily measure your bandwidth. Now, whether you're actually accurate or not, I have no idea.

NNAMDIDo you ever monitor your data use? Call us, 800-433-8850. Do you check your cell phone bill to see how much voice, texting and data time you are consuming? And have you, as a result of that, adjusted your plan? 800-433-8850. You can send us a tweet, @kojoshow, or email to kojo@wamu.org. Most cell phone companies offer different data plans, depending on how much you think you will use.

NNAMDIFor those of us who don't know a megabyte from a gigabyte, give us a sense of difference in order of magnitude between the different plans. How do I decide between 200 megabytes per month or 4 gigabytes per month?

PEGORAROWell, first, you may not have that choice. Like Verizon, for instance, if you have a smartphone, you have to get the two-gig plan. AT&T, you have that choice. There is the 200 or 250 megabyte plan data plus. They don't have data minus plan (unintelligible) and then the two-gig DataPro plan. I think what it comes down to basically is, are you just browsing the Web or are you uploading a lot of photos?

PEGORAROAre you listening to a lot of music online? If you do either of those things where you're pushing large blocks of data, not just individual Web pages, you're probably going to need the higher capacity plan.

RASHAnd, in fact, some of that depends on what kind of phone you've got. For example, Android phones constantly pull their various email services and download emails, and that uses up a lot more data.

RASHThat's one of the things that brought this whole agreement about was a woman who was taking a Caribbean cruise and found herself with a $8,000 bill because her phone was left on. And it just sat there while she visited each of the various islands and got a new data plan and had thousands of dollars worth of email that she could've gotten when she got home. So...

NNAMDIWhat was her bill?

RASHAbout $8,000.

NNAMDIDid she get any relief from that all?

RASHYou know, I think she did.

NNAMDIYeah.

RASHI think that was one of those situations where she said, hey, look, I had no idea while, you know, we were -- and so forth. You know how those things are. But the fact is that you can keep an eye on it in a lot of ways. The best way to make sure you don't use too much is to not stream things. You know, for example, if you like to listen to music while you drive or while you run, download it through your computer and put it onto your device first.

NNAMDIRather than listening to it streaming. That'll cost you more.

RASHYes. If you have -- and it's very easy to put several days worth of listening onto any of these devices.

NNAMDIHere is Kevin in Silver Spring, Md. Kevin, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

KEVINYeah, hi. I just wanted to make a comment regarding Netflix.

NNAMDIYes?

KEVINMy wife and I are young professionals, and we have a 5-year-old daughter. And my wife has an HTC Incredible with Verizon, and she has grandfathered-in unlimited data plan. And I've got to tell you it's incredibly helpful when you're stuck somewhere with a little kid, to be able to put Dora on all of a sudden, and just hand her the phone.

NNAMDISo you use Netflix on your phone pretty frequently, huh?

KEVINYes, we do. And we actually use her phone as a wireless hub when we're traveling with a laptop, and we can't find a signal.

NNAMDIIf they did not have an unlimited data plan, their bills would be enormous, wouldn't they?

PEGORAROWell, especially with the tethering. You know, there's -- I actually have one of these traffic-counting apps on my phone. It's called NetCounter. It's an Android app, NetCounter, one word. And it says I haven't actually used that much. I think 147 megs this month. Well, I have been testing a couple of other phones that I've been using all the time. 1.4 -- and this is over just cell, not Wi-Fi. I think 1.4 gigs total, but I don't know how far back that goes. I don't think it's that many months.

NNAMDIYeah, it just seems like a lot, though. Wayne, it's obvious that streaming a movie on your iPhone or Droid phone uses a lot more of your data allotment than sending a quick email. But what about favorite apps like Hulu, Pandora, Spotify? Are they big data guzzlers?

RASHIt depends on the application. Pandora, for example, actually isn't a streaming application. I found that out one day when I was a doing a series of Wi-Fi tests. And I was using Pandora, thinking I was going to be able to measure bandwidth streaming on that and finding out it doesn't actually do that at all. It goes and downloads three or four, whatever the next songs are, then it shuts off until you finish listening to them.

NNAMDIYep.

RASHSo it's not really a streaming application. However...

PEGORAROWell, it's sort of stream and restart, I guess, to...

RASHWell, it's sort of a download, but it uses a lot less data than you think it does. Whereas some of the other ones -- and, of course, we all love to talk about Netflix, which uses vast quantities of data. And that's because you're downloading real time -- you're downloading video over the device. Now, a way around that is if you have an iPhone, for example.

RASHBuy the movie on iTunes or buy the song on iTunes for, like, a buck and put the stuff -- or use your CDs and load it into iTunes. And then just listen to what you've got, and it's all free. You don't have to pay for streaming.

NNAMDII do all of the above. How about Hulu?

PEGORAROHulu, same issue. You've got video. And on, you know, a mobile device, you're looking at Hulu Plus, which gives you HD, which is good, but bad since that's more bandwidth.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones again. Here is Martha in Arlington, Va. Martha, go ahead, please.

MARTHAHi. My boyfriend just got the new iPhone 4, and he's wondering if he can -- you mentioned earlier you could swap out a SIM card if you're traveling overseas. But can he do that with his phone with Verizon? I'm just curious.

RASHThe Verizon phone -- the Verizon iPhone, if it's the world phone version of it, I don't remember what the original...

PEGORAROThe iPhone 4S, they're all...

RASH(unintelligible)

PEGORARO...the iPhone 4S, they're all GSM, CDMA world phones.

RASHIn which case, Verizon is fairly liberal about letting you put in a foreign SIM card. And, I think, all you have to do is call them up, and they'll give you whatever code is required to be able to use it.

PEGORAROMaybe you have to be, like, 60 days into a contract, but that's not much.

RASHYeah, it's not exactly a big deal with Verizon.

NNAMDII specifically bought an unlocked phone for travel overseas, so that whenever I travel overseas, I can leave my iPhone here and take that phone with me and put a SIM card in it wherever I happen to be.

PEGORAROThat is an issue 'cause AT&T, they do not unlock the SIM card on the iPhone ever. So even though you get off the plane, you know, lot of airports, there are people selling running SIM cards before you can get through customs.

PEGORAROThat's no good unless you jailbreak and unlock an AT&T iPhone.

RASHRight. Now, I have a BlackBerry, and I have that unlocked. And it works fine with foreign SIM cards. And it's sometimes been a very useful time. My regular SIM card died while I was in Germany. And, fortunately, I had a German SIM card, so I could still use the phone.

NNAMDIMartha, any other questions?

MARTHANo, that's it. Thank you.

NNAMDIThank you for your call. We can move on to Patrick in Columbia, Md. Patrick, tell us your experience.

PATRICKYes. I just got back from Japan, and I can confirm that Verizon does send text messages when you are reaching dollar amounts. My first day in Tokyo, I had the phone on. And then I got my first text saying I had reached $50 on the limit. So I figured I'd just keep it safe, and so I turned off the phone. Unfortunately, it was in my bag, and it must have hit something. So the phone turned on.

PEGORAROOh, no.

PATRICKYes. Exactly. So it ran until the battery died out. And the first time I noticed the charges I was racking up is when I got back from Sunday. And I saw that the increments that Verizon sends the texts -- it was $50, $150, $250 and then up to $500. And I guess, somewhat luckily, I didn't go beyond $500. But, yes, I can say that you do get the texts from Verizon.

NNAMDIThat's kind of like the dog-ate-my-homework excuse. It just turned on in my backpack. I couldn't do anything about it. I didn't know. Sorry about that.

PATRICKYes.

NNAMDISorry about that, Patrick. Any advice you could give to anybody else?

RASHAnd before you...

PATRICKWell, you could follow up the advice that my wife just gave me, and she said, well, just don't bring your phone.

NNAMDIYeah, maybe that's a better idea. I don't know. Wayne.

RASHThere are actually a couple of other things you can do, one of which is when you get on the plane and you're going to use your device anyway, you got to set it into airplane mode. You can just leave it in airplane mode until you figure out exactly what's going to happen.

NNAMDIYep.

RASHAnd then you can turn off the data part of it. You know, turn off the 3G. Just leave the, you know, voice phone turned on.

NNAMDIYep.

PEGORAROYeah, you can turn on airplane mode and then turn Wi-Fi only back on, so that if you're within a signal and, you know, it's possible, if you really tinker, you can turn on just voice data but not -- voice data -- voice calling, you know, the phone part of the phone, but leave data off.

RASHRight. You can do that. And that way you can use the -- if you need to make a phone call -- even though I will tell you now that that's also expensive in Japan.

PEGORAROYeah.

NNAMDIThanks for your call. Patrick. On to Claire in Dover, Del. Claire, your turn.

CLAIREHi. I listen to Pandora all time because I'm training for an Ironman triathlon. So I listen to it, literally, for six to seven hours at a time. So I'm lucky I don't have the data plan, you know, limits on my data plan. But I just think it's kind of unfair that we were sold this idea of these smartphones, how awesome they are, we can use them all the time, how great they are.

CLAIREAnd then, all of a sudden, wait, you can only use it for this amount of time every month. I mean, just think -- I don't know. I just think it's kind of a little unfair about what they're doing with it.

NNAMDIWayne.

RASHWell, you do have an option. Buy a Sprint phone. They still have unlimited data.

PEGORAROThey finally started advertising it. For years, it was kind of buried on their site, and now they have unlimited at the top of their ads.

RASHYeah, that's the best solution you've got is buy -- you know, buy a Sprint phone.

NNAMDIAnd, Claire?

CLAIREYeah, it sounds great. Thank you.

NNAMDIGood luck to you. Thank you very much for your call. We've got to take a short break. When we come back, we'll be talking, of course, about the 50-year anniversary coming up of WAMU 88.5, because we are in the middle of our fall membership campaign. But after that, we continue this Tech Tuesday conversation about understanding data limits to avoid being overcharged. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIIt's a Tech Tuesday conversation about data limits and avoiding being overcharged on your smartphone. We're talking with technology writer Rob Pegoraro, and Wayne Rash, he's a technology journalist, Washington Bureau chief of eWeek and contributing editor of TechWeb. Taking your calls at 800-433-8850. You can send email to kojo@wamu.org. You can send us a tweet, @kojoshow. Or simply go to our website to join the conversation there.

NNAMDIWhich do you prefer, unlimited data plans so you don't have to worry, or the satisfaction of knowing you're only paying for what you use? 800-433-8850. This email we got from Catherine in Silver Spring. "All of this sounds nice, but how much are people spending per month? Streaming movies for your bored kid? I'm a fairly well-paid person, but I can't imagine what people are paying per month for all these services.

NNAMDI"I spend $65 a month on an old Sprint plan that is being discontinued, so I need to start shopping around. Can you get service for a Droid or iPhone for less than a $100 a month?" Rob?

PEGORAROYes, you can. First of all, one thing to look at is how much texting you are going to do, you know. If you go with the unlimited texting plan, which on AT&T you pretty much have to 'cause they got rid off their intermediate plan. So you either pay per message, which gets expensive in a hurry if anyone you know likes to text you, or unlimited 20 bucks a month. Verizon has a couple of different levels. Sprint, they include unlimited texting, but they have a $10 add-on for smartphones.

PEGORAROThe most cost-effective strategy if you're not going to be spending a whole lot of time on the Web or calling is to get a prepaid plan, and you can now get Android phones -- I think Virgin Mobile has a few. Cricket Wireless, don't they don't have a couple out there?

RASHI saw -- in fact, I saw several as I walked by a Cricket booth a couple of days ago.

PEGORAROOkay. That can save a whole lot because, you know, you don't have -- with postpaid, as they call it, you're looking at at least 70 bucks a month, even if you get a discount through your employer or whatever.

RASHAnd, really, it -- you can get some carriers with unlimited plans for under $100 a month. I think Sprint's is, what, $79, something like that?

PEGORAROIs that for unlimited calling or unlimited data?

RASHYou know, I thought it was unlimited everything.

PEGORARO'Cause I would say...

NNAMDIWe got this Facebook post from Michael, who said, "Most people don't need unlimited data. It costs more, and most of the time it's a waste of money. I use my iPhone a lot and only have the medium data plan with AT&T, and that's plenty," says Michael. Michael may not be streaming a lot of video, huh?

RASHProbably not. And that's really -- once you're planning to stream a lot of video, you don't need to pay a fortune for your plan.

PEGORAROThe other option, of course, is make sure your phone is using Wi-Fi when you're at home, when you're at work, you know. Then that cuts your data use, as far as the wireless carrier is concerned, to zero.

NNAMDIHere is Eric in Salisbury, Md. Eric, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

ERICHey, guys. I heard one of your guests comment about the Verizon plan where you have to have the two gigabyte plan for the smartphones. I'm kind of new to the whole smartphone scene. I just got one a couple months ago. And Verizon just recently -- and I don't know if it's just on the eastern shore here. Verizon actually has a much smaller plan now that they offer for $20 a month, which is a 300 megabyte plan.

ERICSo I'm not sure if that's available over on your own side of the bay or not, but, over here, it's a fairly new plan. So I just thought you guys like to have the heads up on that one.

PEGORAROThat sounds like a plan they offer for what they call feature phones, which -- they use the term feature phones 'cause dumb phone is too cruel. That's basically phones that don't have access to huge app stores, that have a basic Web browser, which you know, five years ago, there would have been a Treo 650 or a high-end BlackBerry. I know when Verizon rolled out this capped data plan that they added this as an option.

PEGORAROAnd once upon a time, it might have been an option for smartphones as well, but now if it's -- so it's not running Android, not a BlackBerry, not the iPhone.

ERICWell, I have the Casio whatever it is, this indestructible phone 'cause I do tend to go through phones pretty quickly. And he said it was optional -- that I could actually get it, which is an Android phone, that I could actually use the 300 megabyte plan for this phone now.

RASHWell, it may be that they've got that plan enforced. I mean, I'm not a Verizon customer so...

PEGORAROI am not either.

RASH...I don't know.

NNAMDINor am I, but I used to be. Eric, thank you so much for your call.

ERICThank you, guys.

NNAMDIWe got an email from Robert, who says, "I've carefully look at my usage. The carriers have calculators on their website to look at all average uses. Then, look at the options they give you. They have purposely set them so that you either pay for more than you need or you pay for overage charges. They do not offer a plan with minutes or data amounts that actually fit your needs. They know what they're doing.

NNAMDI"They're only agreeing to send alerts because the government threatened to pass regulations." A bit cynical, but, I guess, some people say realistic.

PEGORAROWell, you know, these companies are not charities. I'm certainly expecting they're going to construct their price plans so they can make as much money as possible off of them.

PEGORAROIt is somewhat weird how they've often marched in lockstep, how they've sort of increased the minimum amount of minutes you can pay for, even though, you know, at this point, I would say if unlimited data is potentially a bad deal, unlimited calling is almost always a bad deal since you already get free calls on nights and weekends, at least to other people on the same carrier, sometimes to other people on any mobile device.

PEGORAROI can -- I'm having a hard time constructing a scenario where you'd want to pay for unlimited calling. But they still advertise it like it's a great thing and you should all get it.

NNAMDIThe New York Times reports that one hour of a high-definition movie might use as much as 2.3 gigabytes. Can you offer some advice on cutting back on data consumption starting with video?

RASHWell, that's -- I read that article, and that's on Comcast delivering it to TV sets. And, you know, even if it's supposedly high definition and you're looking at it in a 4" screen, you're not going to ever know whether it's high definition or not.

PEGORAROAnd that should be optimized for the display (unintelligible).

RASHYes. And it is. And in fact, you use a lot less data on a phone than you do on your TV set.

NNAMDIOkay.

RASHSo if you're looking at a high-def thing on your -- well, I know Kojo's probably got an 82-inch high-def TV.

NNAMDIYeah, right.

PEGORARONinety (unintelligible) 100-inch now?

NNAMDIUh uh. No way. You were going to say, Rob?

PEGORAROWell, where this really comes into play, though, is people who don't have any other option for broadband at home except for mobile, for wireless broadband. I was giving a talk at the Loudon County Chamber of Commerce last week, and this woman who has a business in Waterford, a beautiful town in Western Loudon County, she has no option except for wireless.

PEGORAROBut there, you're looking at a 5-gig cap, and it's going to be easy to blow through that. So she's going to have to never indulge in anything like Netflix and just stick to basic Web browsing.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones again. Here is Aaron in Washington, D.C. Hi, Aaron.

AARONHey, Kojo. Thanks for taking my call.

NNAMDIYou're welcome.

AARONI -- you guys -- thanks. You guys touched on it a little bit ago when you mentioned the Cricket phones, but a lot of people don't realize that you can get a phone that runs Android through Virgin Mobile and only pay $50 a month for unlimited everything. And -- anyway, I just wanted to, like, get it out there to people, really. It's a viable option when it didn't used to be. And you can get a smartphone for a whole lot less money in the long run.

AARONAnd the question that I had was, what is the difference in streaming between, like, Virgin Mobile and, let's say, AT&T? Like, is there a large difference? Would people notice it?

PEGORAROWell, Virgin Mobile, they resell Sprint. Sprint actually bought the company a few years ago. So in terms of bandwidth, Sprint's steady connection and AT&T's -- you know, there are different flavors of 3G AT&T sells, some of which are described as 4G, although it has another service that acts -- it's actually the dictionary definition of 4G that it's working on. It's going to be confusing branding in a couple of years.

PEGORAROBut for your average phone, it's not a huge amount of difference, certainly for Web browsing where, you know, there isn't that much difference in delivering, say, you know, The Washington Post mobile site on AT&T versus Sprint versus Verizon.

RASHNow, they're all about the same. It's -- they use different technologies for each of the services. But the fact is that bandwidth is still bandwidth.

NNAMDIAaron, thank you very much for your call. Most websites have full versions and mobile versions. If you're surfing the Web on your cell phone or, for that matter, your iPad, how can you tell if you're on the mobile version of a website, which uses less data?

RASHWell, there are two ways. One is when you browse to a site and it seems to be easily -- easy to read, doesn't have a lot of graphics. It just got text on it. For example, if you go to -- if you take your mobile phone and go to www.eweek.com, you're going to get the mobile site. It's going to detect that you're a mobile device, and you'll see that you have large letters, easy to read and no graphics to speak of. You can deliberately browse to the full site on those.

RASHSo, usually, if it's easy to read and looks like -- looks good on a mobile phone, you're on the mobile site. But you can also look at the bottom of the screen and see if it will direct you to the full site or see if there's a link to go to the mobile site. And you can look at the URL, and it may tell you whether it's a mobile site or not. It doesn't always.

PEGORAROIf it's something like mobile.websitedomainname.com or m.websitedomainname.com.

NNAMDIYou'll either see the M or the mobile in there. Here is Michelle in Columbia, Md. Hi, Michelle. Go ahead, please.

MICHELLEHi, Kojo. Hi, guests. My question is for Sprint. They currently have an unlimited data plan. Do you guys think that that will go away with the introduction of the iPhone to Sprint's lineup?

PEGORAROThey've kept it through the launch. The only change they've made, they used to have unlimited data on tethering, where you share the phone's Internet connection over Wi-Fi or a cable with your laptop or your desktop. And I think they cap that at 5 gigs. Otherwise, yeah, they launch the iPhone with unlimited. If they, you know, pull back that option, they're going to have some egg on their faces, certainly.

RASHThey've been making a big deal about the unlimited -- as the only iPhone that really has unlimited data.

PEGORAROYeah.

RASHSo my guess is they're going to stay that way for a while, at least.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones again. Michelle, thank you very much for your call. We move on to Mike in St. Charles, Md. Hi, Mike.

MIKEHey, Kojo. Whenever you make a transition to go to the advertising, et cetera, you talk about trying to avoid getting overcharged. In fact, people aren't being overcharged. They're just being charged for what they contracted for. I think the message needs to be given that you need to pay attention to what you're buying. You need to read the contract. And don't read the long paper contract. But go to the websites. That's a little bit easier to read.

MIKEBut people shouldn't be shocked when they find out that when they come from Japan that they've got a multi-thousand dollar phone bill if they use it as if they're in Metro D.C. That's all I've got to say.

NNAMDIOkay, Mike. But there's also this, Wayne. How about -- how often do people end up, I guess, in a way, overpaying for their data plan because of a fear of overage fees if they exceed their limit?

RASHYou know, that's an interesting question. I don't know that there are any studies out there that would reveal the answer to that question. I do know that there are a lot of people who worry about that. I also know that there are a lot of people who find out that they should have worried about that. And, you know, it's one of these things -- I can't answer the question 'cause I don't know how many. My guess is the phone carriers know.

NNAMDIRob, you said the greater danger is overpaying for the voice plan on your cell phone. Why?

PEGORAROWell, yeah, just because so much of the calling you might do has become de facto free, you know? They don't bother metering it for calls on weekends, at night, mobile-to-mobile calls. At first, it was only -- if you're on Verizon, you're calling someone else on Verizon. Sprint changed that if you're calling anyone on any mobile phone. So, yeah, it's just really hard. It has been years and years and years since I've gone over limit on, you know, the number of plans in my -- number of minutes in my plan.

NNAMDIHere is Darien (sp?) in Bowie, Md. Darien, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

DARIENHey, gentlemen. How are you doing today? We sort of danced all over the call -- the topic that I was calling about, which was how you have some carriers charging hundreds of dollars for their plans, and then the no-contract carriers charging you nothing -- or nothing but a fixed rate per month for the same plans. We pretty much talked all about it. But here's the other answer to that is or another question that's related.

DARIENHow are the carriers, that are charging these hundreds of dollars -- how are they able to compete at this point with the Virgin Mobiles and the -- and the Crickets and the Boosts? If you can -- if the basic carrier, the basic phoner can get what they need for $45 or $50 a month, why and who will continue to go to the major carriers?

NNAMDIRob?

PEGORAROA couple of reasons. One, you know, the prepaid carriers were, for a long time, sort of the sideline. If you couldn't pass a credit check or anything, then they would send you there, and they would have, you know, broken down old, plain -- not even feature phones, just phone phones. And it's still the case. You know, the iPhone isn't available prepaid. You know, the Samsung GALAXY S II that I'm testing from AT&T, that's not prepaid.

PEGORAROYou know, the hot, flashy, fancy new phones you might want to brag about if you're that kind of person, you're not going to get through prepaid. Now, it's become more of a difference in terms of you know, how much calling, how much coverage you need as well. Cricket, for instance, they launched with very limited coverage, and then expanded it, but it's not the same as what you'd get from a Verizon or a Sprint or an AT&T.

RASHIt's also the fact that, you know, if you plan to use your phone strictly for intermittent, at-home-type use, a prepaid phone is a pretty good deal. But if you're using it for something like, you know, say, business, where you need the flexibility of being able to call from anywhere and talk as long as you want, then the prepaid is not going to work for you.

NNAMDIJust about out of time, but I have to ask you this, Wayne, because Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, is offering its customers $100 worth of free apps as an apology for its service outage last week. What impact do you think the outage and the free apps offer will have on the company and customer loyalty, including yours?

RASHWell, let's see. I've got a BlackBerry, as Kojo noted. The customer outage was a real pain in the neck. But, you know, if you look at the price of BlackBerry apps, which are generally pretty cheap, just like everybody else's apps, I don't know where you would put $100 worth of apps on a BlackBerry, given its limited memory. How will it help the company? Well, the outage hurt the company badly.

NNAMDIYep.

RASHIf you had to pick a bad time to have the outage, that was the worst time. And I don't know whether the free apps will help because, like I said, I mean, how many...

PEGORARODoes the average CTO or CIO really care about getting some free games for their BlackBerry?

RASHNo, I don't think so.

NNAMDINot in this town. Rob Pegoraro is a technology writer. Rob, good to see you again.

PEGORAROThank you.

NNAMDIWayne Rash is a technology journalist. He's Washington bureau chief of eWeek and contributing editor of TechWeb. Wayne, always a pleasure.

RASHAlways a pleasure, Kojo. Thanks for having me.

NNAMDIAnd thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.