Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata Jnr.

Data guzzlers like me certainly can’t depend on the regular mobile data, otherwise, I will have to break the bank. But then, what happens if your Internet service provider is not available in a particular location like I have experienced in Lagos, Nigeria’s tech capital a number of times? In this case, you will have no choice but to resort to using your phone’s mobile data because the telecommunications companies have far more reach than regular Internet/broadband service providers. Mobile data, of course, is not cheap. In my case, I rather move around with a mobile wifi which I find a lot more cost effective. That brings me to the point of the cost of Internet service, which in my opinion is still expensive but I must admit that it is a lot better than what it was a few years ago.

For you to reduce your cost of data usage, you need to adopt some strategies whenever possible. Your smartphone is capable of consuming all your Internet data without you realising it especially if you use Android. This may be from the data-hungry apps that are always running in the background or simply because of default configurations of your phone that you are unaware of.

There are, however, several techniques that you can adopt to ensure your data usage is reduced. Below are some of the tips you may want to try out:

The first natural way to prevent data usage is to switch off the mobile data on your phone. There are instances when you do not use your smartphone for a particular period of time; for instance when you are sleeping, driving or attending a meeting. All you need to do is to move to the notification panel on your smartphone and switch the mobile data option off if it is an Android smartphone. If you are an iPhone user, then go to Setting > General > Mobile data and turn off the mobile data. You can switch the mobile data off to prevent too much data usage during the period. You need to be sure, however, that you are not anticipating an important e-mail that you will not be able to check if you are not connected to Internet.

There are a number of apps on your smartphones that are working in the background, consuming your Internet data without you even realising it. Of course, a few apps will possibly not consume that much—but multiple apps or services can rapidly accumulate to a data burn. Several apps and services, for example, Facebook and Email are continuously syncing and checking for updates.

Major mobile operating systems such as Android and iOS permit you to limit background data. To restrict data in an Android device, just go to the Setting and select Data usage and then scroll down to observe the amount of data each app has used. Just click on it to get more details. If you will like it to halt refreshing in the background, just check the Restrict Background Data box. In case, you are an iOS user, then go to Settings > General and press Background App Refresh button. Here, you can easily turn Background Refresh off for all apps and services, or you can just scroll down and select the apps that you do not want to refresh in the background.

You may think that chat applications are free and do not use data but the fact is, these free chat applications have the potential of consuming a large amount of your Internet data. Whether you use Google’s Hangouts or Apple’s iMessage or third-party apps such as WhatsApp or TextFree, these apps can eat up a large chunk of your data. If you send basic texts, you don’t need to worry so much. However, a large amount of data will be consumed, if you send pictures or videos via these applications.

Unless absolutely required, you ought to avoid downloading massive files such as songs or videos while using mobile data. Instead, you should download such large files at a future time when you are connected to a Wi-Fi network.

Some web pages may not be optimised for mobile devices and may consume a great deal of your mobile data as well as several other websites that may eat up your Internet data via a lot of advertisements. You can simply prevent this by making use of mobile browsers that enable data to be compressed. Mobile Web browsers such as Google Chrome and Opera Mini have the options to shrink the data from a web page just before it is sent to your smartphone or tablet. It may not work for protected connection websites like online banking. However, for most of the websites, it will make smart use of each megabyte. Note that you may need to change the browser’s settings to enable this option.

Whenever you visit a website from your smartphone, each element, from the text to the videos, needs to be downloaded just before it is shown. It is not a big issue when visiting the website from your home PC using the broadband connection, but on your mobile device, it is a big problem.

Most of the sites now offer both a desktop and a mobile version. The mobile version always includes very fewer photos and videos and is much lighter and quicker to load. Several websites are setup to identify if you are visiting from a mobile device and will redirect to the mobile version instantly. If you think you are visiting a desktop version of a website on your smartphone, then check to see if there is any link to a mobile version. Generally, you can get the link at the bottom of the webpage.

You are sure to enjoy considerable savings on your mobile data by applying the above strategies. Do let me know via email or SMS, if you find these tips useful. Remember to join me on Tech Trends on Channels TV (www.CFA.ng/tv) by 4.30pm on Mondays.