You watch videos online several times a week and are likely to download a lot of applications and games as well as music for your phone. You rely on your mobile internet for work as well as communication with friends and family and need to use your phone for internet access several hours daily. Does that match your usage habits? That means you're classified as a heavy user. With more and more apps requiring access to data services, it can be hard to work out what apps use how much data.
You can check exact usage on your phone. If you have an iPhone, fire up Settings, tap Mobile Data and scroll down to see which apps are using the most data. Android users simply need to tap into the Data Usage menu in Settings to see a detailed graph of how their data usage has changed over the previous months, as well as a list of apps that are hoovering up the most data.
The following is a good guide:. With this information and an honest assessment of how you use your phone for instance, how often do you stream music?
If you only access the web or open email on your phone, then a smaller allowance should suit your needs. Running low on data is a familiar problem for many of us. Wi—Fi is your friend when it comes to saving data. Regular home broadband or public Wi—Fi hotspots mean you can download whatever you need before you head out and shift to 3G or 4G networks. Netflix, Amazon Prime and BBC iPlayer all allow you to download programmes over Wi—Fi, meaning that as long as you have enough storage space on your smartphone, you can stash whatever shows you want to watch without having to use data.
This is particularly handy for train journeys, where 4G network access can patchy. Likewise, Spotify and Apple Music allow you to download offline music, so you can listen to playlists, albums and podcasts without having to stream them. Remember, too, that Google Maps allows you to download entire towns, cities and regions, meaning you can use your phone in Airplane mode and still get from A to B.
Find out how to use Google Maps offline. The growth of data rollover has come at the same time as more networks offering data—free services.
This means that users can access certain services without them eating into their data allowance, meaning they can either cut back on their package or use it for other services.
So you can watch your favourite shows and listen to music without using any data or having to download anything. Virgin Media customers on select plans can use WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Twitter without eating into their monthly data allowance. Networks are increasingly wising up to users having data left at the end of their monthly billing cycle and allowing them to roll it over into the following four-week period. That data will be there whenever you want to use it for up to three years at no extra cost.
But, just like iD Mobile, you use any rolled over data before your regular monthly allowance. Vodafone customers on a pay as you go Big Value plan can rollover any unused data at the end of the month. O2 customers can rollover any unused data to use the following month. For more information, take a look at our guide to data rollover. If your data usage varies a lot month to month, a flexible contract might be the perfect solution.
Rather than tying yourself into a set monthly allowance for the next two years, you can now choose a tariff that lets you change it up every month.
O2 , for example, offers a range of flexible contracts to help you manage your monthly allowances. For more data-saving tips, check out our guide on how to limit your data usage. But there are lots of ways you can use your mobile wherever you are in the world without it costing you a fortune.
Thanks to EU legislation passed in June , you can now use your mobile phone data anywhere in the European Union without it costing you any extra. Three lets you use your monthly allowance for no extra cost in 71 locations worldwide, including USA, Australia and New Zealand. O2 customers get inclusive roaming in 47 European destinations. Vodafone customers can use their monthly allowance of calls, texts and data from 50 European countries at no extra cost.
If you want to find out more before you fly, check out our complete guide to data roaming. This usually gives you a good idea of not only how much data was used last month, but where you stand on average. For Apple users, start with the Settings display. Then look for an option that says Mobile Data or Cellular Data. The process is similar for Android users and also begins with the Settings menu and Data Usage drop-down. The software development team at Windows also has you covered when it comes to checking data usage on your PC computer.
This works on both desktops and laptops. Click the Settings icon in the right corner of the start menu bar. Then click the Network icon and open the menu. Right-click on the name of your network connection and select Show Estimated Data Usage. Not a PC user? No problem! Open up the Activity Monitor. While there, click on the Network tab to see current data usage and determine which apps and programs are hogging the most.
Not difficult at all! Each manufacturer is a little different, so it pays to review your user manual to determine exactly how to do this for your particular unit. Just turn on that made with its firewall screen by flipping on the switch. Many apps are famous for using huge amounts of data. For example video streaming apps like Netflix, Instagram, Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, Zoom, and some social media apps like Facebook can sometimes be very data heavy.
How long does it take to use 1GB of data? Unfortunately 1GB can go very quickly on a mobile connection especially with 5G and even faster over WiFi or Ethernet. Send over a million messages with a popular messenger like Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger. Upload or download thousands of photos depending on quality. Participate in an hour long Zoom meeting.
Watch hours of streaming video. Youtube uses less data than Netflix, so you could watch approximately 10 hours of Youtube on a lower video quality setting, while you'd only be able to watch half as long with your Youtube set to a medium setting. To watch longer, open Youtube then tap your user icon in the top right of the screen, then choose settings. Next go to "General" and turn on "Limit mobile data usage".
How much mobile data does Netflix use? Netflix uses about 1GB of data per hour, so your data will run out much faster with that. But just like with Youtube, you can go into your Netflix settings to limit your video quality and watch longer. While testing we found all of these streaming video streaming apps and services used a similar amount of data as Netflix, at approximately 1GB of data per hour. We also found almost all of these apps have easy to use data savings modes to decrease their data usage.
Just go into the app settings to start limiting your data usage. For example, to save mobile data with Youtube TV tap the options button in the top right corner. Your video will now stream at lower quality while on mobile to save your data. We found the apps above all have similar options to save data with your phone, computer, or TV hardware. And how much data does Spotify use? Audio files use less data than video. Go to your Spotify settings to set your audio quality to the lowest and you should be able to listen to music for several days to use up 1GB of data.
How much data does TikTok use? With our testing we found TikTok seemed to use about half as much data as Youtube. So in most cases with video set to normal quality or low quality you should be able to watch TikTok for approximately 20 hours before going over 1GB of data. Instagram uses a similar amount of data. How much data does Zoom use?
We found an hour long Zoom group video meeting will use MB to 1. However, you can improve this significantly by going into Zoom's settings and disabling HD video.
So what uses the most data? On phones and PCs, video streaming and downloading will usually use the most data. Always check video related apps like Youtube, Netflix, Instagram, Facebook, Zoom, and TikTok for their bandwidth usage settings to save your mobile data.
Satellite Internet providers like Exede, Viasat, Starlink, and Hughesnet also have data usage portals available. To make matters worse Comcast was recently in the news with their plan to impose a new 1. In most cases PCs or phones are responsible for data overages due to software updates, large game downloads, video streaming, or glitchy apps.
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