I have been using and loving my 32gb since it arrived 8 hours ago. I thought when I was buying it you could pay for 3G as you needed/wanted it but when I go to cellular data it seems like it is trying to make me choose "recurring plan" can some one help me understand how this works?

Have a look here to see what Verizon offer.

iPad Data Plans | Verizon Wireless

Tim

I guess my real question is if the data plans are monthly or if I can just buy data as needed. My day to day life I am covered with free wifi every where I go but I want 3G when I travel

The plan is month to month. You can cancel it after a month. If you don't use all the data you contracted for in a month, there's no rollover data. You start fresh the next time you need/want the 3G.

Thanks for the info

Ok I bought my first data plan ... Now I have a new question,

How do I control wether I'm using wifi or 3G ... Obviously don't want to waist 3G while wifi is available.

Turn off 3g in your settings . I'd suggest for battery savings leave it off unless you are going to use it anyway.

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Great advice from Mountainbikermark..

He's right - the best way is to turn off 3G, then - absolutely - you are sure you're using WiFi. The iPad will, however, always use WiFi in preference to 3G - so you might think his advice was unnecessary - surely the iPad would always use WiFi?? But there's a subtle problem in that, if you leave 3G switched on (which you'd assume would be OK if you're at home, say, with your home WiFi up-and-running - hey, the iPad will use WiFi) and your home WiFi 'goes down' without you noticing, then the iPad will switch seamlessly to 3G without warning you and, unless you notice the WiFi 'fan' icon is missing from the menu bar, you'll be using 3G.

So, better safe than sorry.....

Switch off 3G in the iPad's 'Settings' menu and then rest easy....

Tim

Thanks for the info exactly what I wanted to know

I know this varies from user to user, but I'm wondering just how much data I might expect to use. That is, is 1gb a lot or is it easy to use it all up? I know I don't want to be using a lot of streaming - music for example, but I wonder how much a GPS that grabs map data from the web might use, or google maps/google earth.

Perhaps there is a good app that can measure my data usage the I can use to test this?