My brothers and I have attempted countless times to explain to our mother the difference between WiFi and mobile data, including that you should connect to WiFi to save data and that you don’t need a functioning SIM card with data to use the WiFi at the airport when arriving from overseas.
I love my mother but I am struggling to comprehend the incomprehension. If anyone has some kind of simple or fun metaphor or something that explains it, I would be forever grateful. Thank you.
In: Technology
Your house has water on tap, you pay very little for that water. You can also drink water from the tap at a friends house or from a drinking fountain at a business or mall.
You can also go to the store to buy bottled water which is way more expensive. You do this when you are out and about because you don’t have any other options.
If you want to save money you’ll use water from the tap whenever the hell you can.
Wifi is the water from your faucet, mobile data is the bottled water.
“Wifi” means “using someone else’s internet connection”. This could be your house’s internet connection, or the airport’s internet connection, or a coffee shop’s internet connection. Regardless, you’re telling your phone to use *that* internet connection.
“Mobile data” means “using your cell phone’s own cell connection”.
This is why you can still connect just fine on wifi even when your phone has no signal: because wifi isn’t using your cell phone’s own connection at all.
WiFi is like tap water, mobile data is like bottled water.
if you have access to a faucet, you have water.
if you don’t have access, you can use bottled water.
you probably pay for both tap water and bottle water, but not the same way or at the same rate.
if you are on an unlimited data plan or don’t tend to use much mobile data then it’s mostly a moot point, use whatever gets you what you want faster.
if you are paying for the mobile data by how much you use then it makes sense to ration it for when you really need it.
Tell her mobile data is her own personal internet, which she has a limited amount like a bottle of water. WiFi is someone else’s internet that she can borrow, and that’s it’s unlimited, like someone’s tap.
If she’s out, she doesn’t need to drink her bottled water because she’s somewhere where there’s a tap and she can save her bottle for when there’s no tap nearby.
Although, does your mother ever run out of mobile data? If she has 15gb but only ever uses 2-3 then you might not need to explain.
Is your mother going on an international trip and you’re trying to explain how she can save money by not using mobile internet? I’d start from that angle. Explain that if she uses mobile internet overseas, it gets expensive, so here’s how you turn that off. If you need to use the internet, hotels, restaurants and other places have wifi you can use. Here’s how you turn that on. But if you leave that place, you won‘t be connected to the internet, so when you go somewhere else, look for wifi.
If that’s too complicated, you may want to look into getting a foreign esim. There are apps where you can buy esims that have like x gigs for y days, and stuff like that. Compared to using your mobile internet overseas, it’s a lot cheaper, but it requires a little set up.
Wifi is a short distance wireless connection between your computer or phone and a router within the location you are, which is then connected by wired connection to an internet service provider (Comcast, Spectrum, etc.) in order to connect to the global internet.
Mobile data connects to cellular towers that could be miles from you, that are directly connected to the global internet.
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