| Not all unlimited mobile broadband plans are the | | | | works. |
| same, but not necessarily for the reasons that many | | | | - Numbers are not necessarily in synch. The |
| people might think. The fact of the matter is that | | | | numbers used by computers all revolve around |
| there are a great number of factors that influence the | | | | powers of 2 while humans and lawyers writing |
| relative value of various unlimited mobile broadband | | | | contracts might use the more familiar base 10 |
| plans such as: | | | | system. At 1000 bytes (about the size of an email) |
| - Are there caps? Believe it or not, most unlimited | | | | that different could be around 2%, while at one million |
| mobile broadband plans still have caps! This is likely to | | | | bytes (a small photo) the difference will be over 4%, |
| change in the future, but it is still a serious problem for | | | | and at the billion byte mark (a movie or large game |
| consumers to contend with. | | | | gps package) the difference could be nearly 8%! |
| - What kind of caps are there? Data caps come in | | | | - The hardware counts too! If the hardware is not up |
| three forms: soft, hard, and expensive! Soft data | | | | to the task then data caps do not really count. Who |
| caps mean performance degrades whenever a | | | | wants to push the data caps on a device that is a pain |
| certain limit is reached, while hard caps terminate | | | | to use and is slower than the second coming? |
| service after a certain limit has been reached. | | | | Ultimately data caps often come down to the usability |
| Expensive caps engage a per-unit of data fee that | | | | and performance of the network and the devices that |
| can rack up quickly and often without any notification. | | | | will be used. |
| - How are data caps calculated? Data caps can be | | | | Compare all these factors and sooner or later you will |
| figured on a calendar month, on a rolling window, or | | | | learn which of the so-called unlimited mobile broadband |
| over fixed billing cycles. Any of these methods may | | | | plans is right for you. |
| be used, so it pays to understand exactly how a cap | | | | |