Using Smartphones and tabs to access the Internet is fast becoming a popular daily routine, and with it comes the growth of mobile internet data users across Pakistan. Mobile Internet data enables your smartphone, tablet or mobile broadband modem to access the internet. This includes web surfing, emailing, video/music streaming, downloading, uploading and using apps. You consume mobile data whenever you are sending or receiving emails, downloading apps, streaming music, songs, videos, or simply browsing some web pages.
This article aims to help mobile internet data users understand their usage and keep track of how much data is consumed with their common Internet applications.
Mobile internet data consumers commonly complain about their mobile service/data providers for overstating their usage, which according to them, is well within the limits of the subscribed data plan. This might be true but what the consumers do not realize is the indirect usage, which is the mobile data consumed by their installed Apps even when the phone is sitting idle. These Apps consume mobile internet data in different ways, e.g. Gmail or Hotmail’s scheduled synchronization for new emails, Weather Updates, Social Network updates etc. and updates of the Apps itself, which is quite frequent.
So at the end of the day, even if you yourself has not used the internet, your installed apps did their part of staying updated at the cost of your mobile data.. So you need to be aware of the volume consumed by discreet downloads and updates. You need to have an understanding of how much data you(or your apps) have consumed and what kind of Apps eat how much of your mobile data.
Data Consumption on Android Handsets
If you are using an android device, then you can avoid unnecessary data usage by following these useful steps.
Turn off “push notifications”
This applies especially to emails, social media and GPS apps. Just go to Settings, in the “device” section, tap “Apps”, and uncheck the box for each app that says “Show Notifications”
Beware of “free” apps
Free apps use more data than premium versions. These apps have more ads to display which in return consume more data.
Close certain apps manually
Use task killers for closing apps in one go. Do not leave them running on your mobile. You can also press the back button to exit the app. apps like YouTube, Spotify and Skype use immense amount of mobile internet, so beware and stop these apps after usage.
Track your data usage
Monitor your monthly/daily data. Go to Settings > Wireless and Networks> Data Usage. You can also select “Set Mobile Data Limit” to be sure you do not exceed your monthly limit.
For iPhones Users
Turn off “push notifications”
It is a preemptive measure for your emails, social media and GPS apps. Go to Settings > Notifications > Select the app e.g. Facebook app > Turn “Notification Centre” OFF.
Change your Wi-Fi settings
It is a good practice to run certain services on just Wi-Fi, rather than mobile internet and to do this, choose Settings > General > Mobile Data > and scroll down to “Use Mobile Data for:” > choose OFF for those services that you do not want to run over mobile internet.
Turn off iMessage
iMessage consume mobile data to send text messages. If you are not in a Wi-Fi zone, and your plan includes unlimited SMS, turn off iMessage by going to Settings > Messages > turn iMessage OFF.
Beware of “free” apps
There are various free apps for iPhone users. However, they can often use up more data than the premium (paid) version and display more ads and increase your mobile data usage.
Manually close certain apps
Make sure your exit all apps that use GPS (maps), video or audio streaming (Youtube, Radio, Spotify) or VoIP (Skype). You can do this by tapping the home button twice > apps that are open should be running along the bottom of the screen > tap and hold any app icon > press the red button to close the app and be careful when using these apps over mobile internet connection, as they tend to use up Internet data.
Be aware, watching video clips and listening to radio is data intensive as is downloading videos or music.
Mobile Data Consumption by Usage Type
The following table provides an approximate for the average data usage against various services.
| Service | Data Usage | Average Data Size |
| TV | 15 minutes | 45 MB |
| YouTube | 4 minutes (Music Video) | 11 MB |
| Radio App | 10 minutes | 15 MB |
| 15 minutes with no video streaming | 5 MB | |
| 100 email sent/received with no attachments | 2.5 MB | |
| Email with photo or doc attachment | 10 email sent/received containing attachment | 18 MB |
| Web browsing | 50 web pages/30 minutes | 10 MB/ 13 MB |
| Google maps | 10 minutes | 6 MB |
| Music | 1 music track | 5 MB |
