If you don’t want to be taken by surprise at the end of the month because of your data overspending while you have no idea where it comes from…. heed the message, there is after all some things you can do. Of course, this is a very targeted post, it goes to the many that need to opt for a far from unlimited data plan. The others probably have better things to do than read tips to save on phone data consumption.
Popular phones from all platforms come already loaded with applications that connect permanently to the internet, running in the background where you usually are not seeing them, although many of us don’t realize all that monitoring of this and that, notifying of such and such are actually depleting our megabytes; Then, we add many more applications of our preference and there we go, we don’t know how it’s happening!
“Help” is coming;
Try to keep track of your data usage. find out which applications are the big spenders. Streaming video applications for example, are responsible for much of data loss. Social networks have developed the ability to save your pictures in the cloud, for doing so, they spent your data too. Siri and Google Now, also use your data connection every time you request an answer from them, (yeah, keep asking Siri what’s she wearing).
This is a list of some top data hogs found in a popular carrier website:
• Downloading Video Files Or Watching Streaming Video (Netflix, YouTube, Hulu)
• Automatic Updates For Applications
• Emails With Large Attachments
• Voice Assistants (Siri, Google Now, Tell me, etc)
• Automatic Pictures Uploads (All social networks using cloud)
• Syncing
• Listening To Streaming Audio
What you should do:
Your phone already has the capability of connecting to the internet every time it is available. Keep it on.
Make use of WiFi, either at home or through Public WiFi Networks such as AT&T and Xfinity, (if you have the service) or the free access you can find in many places like Mc Donalds, Starbucks, etc.
Turn off auto updates or change settings to update over WiFi only; do the same for auto photo uploading.
Turn off push notifications “as items arrive”, set Email sync for one hour or more. Use data management applications that allow you to keep track of data usage. And last but not least, browse mobile websites, they contain much less data than regular websites.