Tip of the Week: How to Cut Back on Your Mobile Data Use

One of the biggest benefits of mobile data is how useful it is to business users for networking and productivity while they’re on-the-go. However, one of the biggest drawbacks to mobile data is how easy it is to use up while networking and being productive, and how expensive this can be. Fortunately, there are some ways to reduce the amount of data an Android device uses, as we’ll discuss in this tip.

Diagnosing Data Usage
The first step to using less data is to know where your data is being used. Therefore, it only makes sense to identify where your data is going. Accessing the System Settings and navigating to Network & Internet will give you the option to check your Mobile data usage. This screen will show you which applications used what amount of data, and going into each listed application, if that data was used in the background or through the user’s actual activity.

Capping Apps
Once you know where your data is going, you can put some stops in place to keep it from all funneling out. There are quite a few ways to do this:

Limit Updates - There are many applications that are notorious for refreshing themselves regularly - which means that they burn through mobile data at a pretty consistent basis. Social media applications are prime examples of such apps. There are two methods to cutting back how often these applications update their information. First, go into each app’s settings and try to find an option that will reduce the amount of data that an app consumes in the background. If that doesn’t work, return to your system settings and access that particular application’s settings from there to deactivate background data. Of course, this isn’t the best idea with some apps, like messaging apps, that need to refresh in the background to function properly.

Deactivate Some Features - Many apps also have baked-in features that tend to chew up more data than necessary, like autoplay and high-quality streaming. Again, by accessing each app’s settings, you should find the option to limit the amount of mobile data that is used. Activating these options will greatly reduce the data that these applications leech out during your use of them.

Prepare in Advance - Whenever possible, downloading the content you want to view ahead of time also helps reduce your mobile data consumption. By utilizing Wi-Fi, you avoid chewing through your allotted mobile data and will then have it stored for later viewing at your leisure. You can even do this with Google Maps - by searching for the area in which you’ll need to navigate, you can download that area’s information to access it later in the Offline Maps section.

Clearly, there is no shortage of ways that you can trim back your mobile data usage - and you should encourage your employees to do the same. Check back here for more IT tips.