New iPad Burns Through Data Plans
LEMON: So are you enjoying your new iPad? Well, if you watched just one of those March Madness basketball games on it, you probably have used up an entire month's worth of data plan usage and that could cost you and it could cost you a lot. Dan Simon live now in San Francisco to explain. Dan, how can this be?</s>DAN SIMON, CNN SILICON VALLEY CORRESPONDENT: You know, Don, I can understand why people are frustrated about this. You know, you take the new iPad. It's got the super high resolution screen. The retina screen. And then you combine that with the 4G connection, if you happened to have gotten that upgraded model. And then you have the recipe for consuming a whole bunch of data. So people are complaining, saying that they've exhausted their whole month's data plan in a matter of hours. But we wanted to test this out for ourselves. So we teamed up with a publication called "Tab Times." This is a publication devoted to tablets. And, sure enough, if you're watching a high-definition movie for three hours, you can burn three gigabytes of data. I'm sorry to get technical for a second, but I have to do this. So the way it works is, you can purchase a plan from AT&T; or Verizon. The plans usually are two gigabytes or three gigabytes a month for $30. And you do the math. One high-definition movie equals about three hours. That's three gigabytes of data. This is definitely a story of buyer beware. Take a look.</s>SIMON: What do you think this means for the consumer?</s>GEORGE JONES, EDITOR, "TAB TIMES": This is interesting for the consumer. I think in the short term it probably means a lot of people will be scared and nervous about using these kinds of connections to stream video. I think in the long term, hopefully this -- these kinds of findings are going to help the AT&Ts; and Verizon Wirelesses of the world to kind of figure out kind of what consumers need and then meet that need.</s>SIMON: So if you watch an entire game using this connection, it's going to cost you $30, right?</s>JONES: Yes, $30 for a three-hour baseball game, unless you really need to watch that game, is outrageous. And think about this. You could, you know, buy a ticket for this much money.</s>SIMON: The bottom line here, Don, is these wireless companies don't want these new networks to be constrained, so they have to keep the prices just high enough so lots of people aren't going on there. It's the same reason why they got rid of these all you can eat plans when it comes to, you know, the phones. And so we're seeing the same, you know, principles applied here to tablets. So you've got to be careful.</s>LEMON: What do you do then?</s>SIMON: Well, it's an easy answer. Use wi-fi. And if you happen to be on one of these super high fast mobile connections, be cautious about watching video. That's where you're really going to soak up a bunch of data. There are also some resources you can go on, you know, to your tablet, for example, see how much data you consumed. But you've got to be careful or else you're going to incur some extra fees.</s>LEMON: Mr. Dan Simon in San Francisco. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. A new report shows more kids and more families are living with autism than we ever thought. And we'll have the latest on the troubling numbers and what they mean for your family.