6 ways to save your mobile data

Set of touchscreen smartphones

Set of touchscreen smartphones

Published Oct 13, 2015

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‘We’re not stealing your data.” That’s the message from Vodacom’s KZN honcho Steven Barnwell in response to groundswell of consumer consternation at mobile data seemingly being used up faster than it should.

In fairness to Vodacom, customers of competing networks have been as vociferous. But as Barnwell happened to be addressing media in Durban on Tuesday on a range of subjects, he made a convenient target for some probing questions.

He promised there was no nefarious plot by operators to “steal” customers’ data, and put “leakage” down to a combination of factors.

One is that consumers are switching from old-fashioned feature phones to data-hungry smartphones at an unprecedented rate.

Then there’s the ongoing roll-out of high-speed 4G networks that allow users to blow through their data caps faster than before – although he didn’t put it like that.

“Users are experiencing the benefit of cheaper smartphones – each with a wealth of apps – combined with faster data speeds. It would be surprising if they were not using more data,” he said.

Does that mean we should simply shrug our shoulders and resign ourselves to higher data bills? No. Here are six steps you can take to cut your data usage.

 

Prune your app collection

If you’re like me, you probably have dozens of apps on your smartphone. But how many do you use regularly, or at all? Many apps constantly connect to the internet to pull down data like weather updates and the latest rugby scores. The fewer you have, the less data you’ll use. And your phone or tablet will run more quickly too.

 

Keep track of your mobile data use

Most smartphones come with built-in tools to monitor your usage, breaking this down by mobile and wi-fi data. They vary from device to device so it’s impossible to give specific instructions here, but it’s worth taking the time to locate this feature on your phone or tablet and learn how to use it. If you’re battling, ask your network provider for help.

 

Turn off automatically playing videos

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram don’t just steal your time, they’re increasingly snaffling your data too. Autoplaying or preloaded videos are some of the biggest culprits in this regards. Each app has a way to switch this off. This varies from device to device and you’ll probably need to drill a bit into your app’s setting menu to do this, but it’s worth the effort. For example, in the Facebook app on my Android phone I first clicked on the three lines (or hamburger) tab on the left, scrolled down to the Help and Settings section, selected App Settings and then switched the “Videos play automatically” setting to off.

 

Use Wi-Fi as much as possible

Most responsible developers of apps that use lots of data set them by default to use a cheaper wi-fi connection, rather than 3G or 4G. But not all do, so check. Also, you may have changed a default setting and forgotten about it. For example, my podcast app is set to only download podcasts over wi-fi. However, I once changed this before boarding a flight so I could download a podcast to listen to during my journey, but neglected to turn it back to wi-fi-only. I only realised my mistake several hundred megabytes (and rand) later when I got my next bill.

 

Turn off Wi-Fi assistants

On the subject of wi-fi, both Google’s Android and Apples iOS mobile devices offer users the dubious benefit of automatically switching between mobile and wi-fi networks to give you the best possible connectivity.

It works like this. If the phone or tablet deems the wi-fi connection sub-par, it will automatically switch you to a cellular data connection. Sounds great in theory, but as I’ve discovered to my cost, the threshold for a sketchy wi-fi connection is low and my device was forever switching me to 3G when I though I was safely cruising on wi-fi. Make sure this feature is disabled on your phone.

On Android it is called auto network switch, or smart network switch. To turn it off, go to Settings, wi-fi, Options, Advanced, then Smart network switch or Auto network switch.

On Apple iOS 9 devices, the feature is called wi-fi Assist and it’s switched on by default. To disable it go to Settings, Cellular, then wi-fi Assist.

 

Go prepaid or top-up

Many savvy geeks I know have ditched their contracts and switched to prepaid. While this doesn’t mean you’ll use your data up any any slower, it does eliminate bill shock at the end of the month because the only data you’ll have used is the data you’ve already paid for.

I’ve opted for a compromise solution, a contract with a fixed number of call minutes and data. Once I exceed that I’m cut off until I top up with an add-on voice or data bundle. It may be a hassle occasionally, but it’s worth it to know I won’t inadvertently run up an out-of-bundle data bill of hundreds – possibly thousands – of rand if I’m abroad.

Follow Alan Cooper on Twitter @alanqcooper

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