What do you mean I'm OVER my monthly data plan for my smartphone?!?

Ever wonder how much data you blow through watching re-runs of Blossom on your smartphone plan? Well here are some guidelines on how much certain activities use.  I'm using a 2-gigabyte (2,000 megabytes) monthly allowance of a typical data plan.  Remember try use the the Wi-Fi option whenever possible!!

1. Watching video streamsA high-quality video consumes almost 6MB per minute with a 4G connection.  If you stream a video a day from YouTube for a month or a single HD movie, that's 700MB.  More that a third of that 2GB plan.
2. Video calls
   Face-to-face video calls, using the camera on most new smartphones used 2.5 to 3MB a minute.  Video chat for 20 minutes a week and you used anywhere from 200-600 MB.
3. Uploading video
   Unless it's compressed a 3-minute video clip in HD(1080p) is around 300 MB.
4. Streaming music from a subscription service
   You like tuning in to Pandora while you go for that jog?  That half hour workout every day for a week, plus a couple times a week in the car eats up around 700 MB.
5. Playing games online
   Like battling Curt Schilling in video games while riding the T? Just remember that every minute of playing equals 1MB of data.

On the good side, these three activities use less than 1MB per minute; 

• surfing the web
• using maps an navigation
• sending email without attachments.