15 days with no mobile data Entrepreneur Decision Maker Connector Podcaster EducatorSo what happens if you plug your new iPad Pro into your laptop to charge it while you work?

I have a 40GB a month data plan and it only lasted me 15 days. What’s the first thing that happens when you tell others that you’ve used all your data? “Oh Danny you really shouldn’t watch that much porn”, if they didn’t say that, they were certainly thinking it!! I started to believe this could be the case!

Firstly, I blamed my new Vodafone plan. I had just switched over from a business plan to a personal plan so I could take full advantage of the 40GB of data on offer.

My plan came with a second sim, so I can have a sim for my iPhone and another sim for my new iPad Pro, which means I didn’t have to tether to my iPhone every time I wanted to use the Internet on my iPad Pro. If you ever tether to your device, you will also note the battery runs flat very quickly, so I thought I had the ideal solution, wait there’s more…

I am confessed Netflix-a-holic, so when the Vodafone guy said the account comes with a free social pass and I can pick unlimited access to one of the following services, MySky, Netflix, YouTube or Facebook, I picked Netflix. I normally stand at my office desk in front of my big kick-ass 34in V-Mounted LG screen, having my iPad directly underneath that’s streaming Netflix from the office wi-fi when I work. Little did Danny know, the Type-C cable that was connected from my MacBook Pro into my iPad Pro wasn’t just keeping iPad Pro charged, it was sharing the iPads mobile data to my MacBook Pro to access the Internet as I work. Instead of using the wi-fi at work that has no restrictions, I was eating data like it was a chocolate cake.

So what does no mobile data look like for somebody who lives inside the Internet, who uses voice recognition to do everything and basically runs most of his business using mobile devices?

If you don’t know it, I am dyslexic and part of my business is teaching people to be more productive using voice recognition tools. Voice commands are a big part of this. For example, the little microphone that you see next to most digital keyboards, enables you to do voice to text dictation. This works better with mobile data connected, even though Apple say you can use it without being connected to the internet, but I have never had any joy doing this. To me, being able to use voice dictation is like my dyslexic wheelchair when using different apps and tools on the internet.

Now you know all that, the first thing I noticed with no data was, there’s no notifications and I kind of had my life back. No distractions while talking to people, no watch vibrations on my arm. I have one of the most beautiful watches in the world made by Garmin (Felix 6 Pro) and it turned into a watch again. Every time I turned up at a place that had wi-fi, I would receive a whole lot of notifications.

I run a business networking company and I decided to upgrade the software on my MacBook Pro. I only have a 256MB SSD hard drive so the night before I decided to unlink dropbox, which most of my data is on, as this allowed me enough room to do the upgrade. The PowerPoint presentations I use are stored on dropbox, not a problem I thought, I’ll just get online and download the presentation. I had no Internet, the venue had no Internet, my friend said he has unlimited data on his phone. I said cool, can you share it with me, he tried and then he realised he hadn’t added the extra package onto his account to give him the ability to share his data. The next person I asked if I could tether onto their phone said yes, but she informed me that she didn’t have much data, but still allowed me to access her data. The problem was solved, but what a run around at 7.30am in the morning.

That day I decided to ring up Vodafone and say, “look, I’ve been with you guys for over 25 years. I’m hoping you could help me as I have used up 40GB of data in 15 days. If you look at my account you will notice I normally use on average 19GB, I think I must’ve watched the World Cup rugby or I’m using the wrong device to stream Netflix on. I’m not sure what’s happened to be honest, but I’ve gone through all my data what can you do to help?”

Just for the record Vodafone couldn’t help me, they didn’t even have a solution other than saying, I could buy 1GB of data for $20, I said “I’d eat that in 10 seconds like a chocolate cake!”. I had a cunning plan… I said to them “I don’t have any contract with you guys what would happen if I closed my account and reopened it immediately as a new account?

Is there any reason why I can’t do this?” They said “No!”. That would mean I would get 40GB of data that night. The Vodafone guy said “you don’t need to do anything, just leave it with me and I’ll get it done”. I said to one of my colleagues “yeah right”, sure enough in the morning still no data.

I had an epiphany, a new lease on life, do I really need to be on the Internet 24 seven? I’m going to carry on for the next 15 days with no data, it will make one hell of a good blog. Congratulations readers for getting this far.

Day 2: So I was in one of the shopping malls and I decided to go in and see Vodafone face-to-face to explain my situation. Ideally I was looking for a new plan that would suit my needs. However, the plan I was on was the best solution. The ninja explained that I was not allowed to close an account and reopen it straight away. So I suggested switching accounts to a lesser one and then switching back to my current account straight away. He didn’t see any reason why this couldn’t be done but he needed to check with his manager first. The head ninja said categorically no!

I went to Spark and 2° Degrees looking for a solution and it was a smorgasbord of mobile plans with different hooks but all basically offering the same thing mixed up. I bitched and moaned to everyone I knew that I had no data, but I said “I’ll be right, I can do it, I don’t really need it.”

So my partner and I decided to go on a road trip to Wellington with no data. My beautiful lady and I, who also edits my blogs, Helen, did have a little bit of data on her phone so we could book our accommodation. We should be fine, however, we would have to go without Apple CarPlay, but I was sure we’ll be okay. I had to rely on Helen’s skills when looking for accommodation, but we will be okay.

Day 3: I thought I’ll just have a wee look to see how much data costs, and would you believe Vodafone now have a brand new option for topping up your mobile data, $39 gets you 3GB. So I now have data again, which means I have the ability to dictate blogs, this is that blog!

Things I can now do because I have data:

  • Share my data with Helen because she’s right out
  • Check my lotto tickets from last Wednesday
  • Obviously dictate blogs
  • Use Siri
  • Use maps
  • Get 30 notifications every hour

PS: how do you tell your partner who is bored on the Interislander, who is hot spotting on your Internet watching gymnastics videos, that you only have 3GB of data and it needs to last another 12 more days?

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