500KB/Month data service used to check empty pop mail box

[papley]

With my AT&T (Cingular) Treo 600, after using data service only once this month, I looked at my data service bill in detail for the first time. I noticed I was going over 1 MB of usage for a month and thought it was a little strange. I had 15 to 20KB per day of usage, which added up to about .5MB per month. I called AT&T and they couldn't figure out why and didn't think it had anything to do with email. Of course, on more careful reflection I remembered setting my phone to check the (empty) ATT pop server for mail every 2 hours. The remaining .5MB was taken up on the one occasion each when I browsed the web and received an email message this month.

The upshot was that I turned off automatic mail checking since I can rely on SMS messaging if someone wants to reach me. I'll be shocked if SMS produces any internet overhead. I'm guessing turning off the automatic pop server check will completely eliminate the daily data overhead, though I'm wondering if checking the network timeserver to keep the clock synchronized also uses network overhead.

If you're trying to figure out how much data service you need or whether to use a pop account with your Treo this (.5MB/month for 2 hour checks of an empty pop3 account) should provide a valid benchmark for the baseline data overhead.