Question from Debby: A couple of months ago I bought my first smartphone.
I absolutely love it, but I got a huge bill yesterday because they said I went over my monthly data allotment by several gigabytes.
I do watch a lot of videos every day, but I didn’t realize it would cause me to be charged extra.
My daughter said I need to use Wi-Fi instead of cellular data but I don’t want to get hit with a big bill for that too. She said using Wi-Fi is free, but I want to be sure since I can’t afford another huge bill.
So will I be charged extra if I use Wi-Fi to watch my videos?
Rick’s answer: Debby, switching your phone over to Wi-Fi whenever possible will definitely help prevent you from exceeding your monthly cellular data limit.
To answer your question about whether WiFI is free, the answer is yes as long as you don’t exceed the data limit for your current Internet service plan (assuming it has a data limit, of course).
Unless you have a satellite Internet connection or some other Internet plan with a ridiculously low monthly data limit you shouldn’t go over your monthly data allotment with your Internet provider.
But even if you do exceed your Internet data allotment due to heavy Wi-Fi usage, that won’t affect your cellular phone bill. Any data overages via Wi-Fi will be billed by your regular Internet Service Provider (ISP), not your cellular phone company.
With very few exceptions, there’s no charge for data that’s sent or received via Wi-Fi unless the entity providing the Wi-Fi service (typically some hotels, restaurants and other public venues) charges a fee for using their wireless network.
In a nutshell, using the Wi-Fi signal from your own wireless router and/or free public Wi-Fi connections should allow you to watch your streaming videos without having to pay anything extra.
But that being said, I recommend that you contact your ISP just to confirm that you won’t incur any overage charges due to heavy Wi-Fi use.
Cellular data is really nice and extremely convenient, but as you now know it can end up being quite expensive if you go over your monthly cellular data allotment.
Bottom line: Wi-Fi is free as far as your phone’s data cellular data plan is concerned because it basically bypasses it. Just be sure to check with your regular ISP to make sure they won’t charge you extra from their end.