Mobile data - even light use eats it up too quickly ?

Monanore

 

Phone techie advice please !

I’ve just signed up for a contract with 3GB monthly data which by all accounts should be enough for a light user like me, not doing social media or videos, just checking websites and maps for info etc.

But when I started measuring usage it’s become apparent that such activity uses far more than I anticipated.  For instance, simply looking at a building society site for 2 mins was 10MB.  Multiply that up for daily activity of, say, 20 mins, gives 30 days x 10 x 10 = 3000, so limit easily reached.

This contradicts what articles say, that for light use, 1-2 GB is ample.

Digging into it, the major factor seems to be the huge number of images in websites, most of which are unnecessary, except of course for maps. But they can’t be switched off – take Opera Mini for example, supposed to be the best for data saving.  It does save a lot using compression and other techniques and you can also stop the news display so that helps. But it has removed the option to not show images, offering only to show them in lower quality.

So, am I miscalculating, was I misled, or am I missing something ?

 

 

Vitor

If you're using the building society web-site I'd suggest using their mobile app instead. Modern websites are designed for desktop broadband but mobile Apps are generally more frugal in data use.

The Google Maps app can download areas for offline use, unlike the web version

3GB/month is tight but so long as you only update apps when on WiFi etc. should be managable. 

flaneurs_lobster

It's hard to generalise since data use can vary hugely between individuals. I could quote how much mobile data I use daily (far less than your estimate) but that's probably because 80% of the time my data connection is via Wi-fi.

Conversely, I once ripped through 20GB in 5 minutes doing a couple of speed tests on a shiny new 5g phone.

When travelling and relying on mobile data almost exclusively I've found that max daily consumption would be around half a GB, but that's without taking any real data saving measures and might well be shifting photos to the cloud.

For comparison, recent posts on Reddit suggest that an Amazon delivery driver would be using around 3GB/day.

I'd suck it and see. It's usually pretty easy to upgrade a package if it becomes necessary.

What package are you on with whom? I've got 100GB of full-fat Vodafone for £7/month so deals with more data shouldn't cost you that much more.

ButterCheese

I used to have a 2GB contract and rarely used it up in a month - and I would listen to music via spotify every time I was out in the car.  I made a habit of switching off data as soon as I enetered the house and switching in Wifi. 

As above, websites are data heavy mostly due to pictures and picture ads.  There are settings in some apps (e.g. youtube music) which allow you to select low quality>medium>best quality and also things like "only backup files when using Wifi".  This is good for things like Whatsapp and google photos.

Apart from that, there are many deals out there with good data plans.  For £10/month you should be able to find one with at least 10gb of data.  I'm currently paying £14/month and I get unlimited.

It does seem like the data world is changing, and 2-3Gb was once enough but now isn't.  You may have to accept that and get a bigger/better SIM only plan

Monanore

Thanks everyone, some good ideas in there.

I' m going to post my question in the phones category too, as the categories overlap - I hope that's not too much against the rules.

born_again

Do you use WiFi @ home?
Which will cut mobile data usage a lot.

vacheron

I don't think you state which model phone you have, but most modern phones have an option to select which apps and services can use mobile data.

In many cases the data is not being used by the app but by all the phones' background services updating and polling for information etc.

On my iPhone I can enable and disable each individual service, but there is also an easier option of simply setting "low data mode" so that your phone will only download background services and updates etc. when connected to Wi-Fi.

saajan_12

Monanore said:

 

 For instance, simply looking at a building society site for 2 mins was 10MB.  Multiply that up for daily activity of, say, 20 mins, gives 30 days x 10 x 10 = 3000, so limit easily reached.

Re your calculation - that 2 min presumably included loading up the web page, after which continuing to look at the same page doesn't require re-loading. It would only be 10x that usage if you load a page 10x a day, outside of wifi. A lot of places eg home, work, college, shopping centres have wifi which would cover some of the usage. 

The other problem is you're extrapolating up from a very tiny 2 minute experiment.. it can be hard to get exact measurements eg if there was other background tasks which hadn't quite finished. Does your phone show you mobile data usage by application - perhaps monitor over a few days and see what that adds up to? 

Annecdotallly, I used to be on 5GB for a long time and rarely went above 3GB despite not actively controlling usage on anything except videos. Wifi at home and work, but not bothering to search for wifi when travelling or out and about. 

Frozen_up_north

I’m with Vacheron, if you can restrict which apps use mobile data it might help (and only update when on WiFi).

Halfway through the month, I have only used 1GB of data and I am “out and about” a lot, including using Waze in the car. So realistically it doesn’t necessarily follow that using a phone away from WiFi will use huge amounts of data.

It is easy to get plenty of data for the cost of a couple of pints of beer per month, no real need to limit data to 2 or 3 GB.

AstonSmith

3GB = 3000MB per month, or about 100MB a day. I'd say it's pretty tight for light use, because websites and apps are becoming ever more data hungry. For example, this very MSE forum web page alone is 3.74MB (before I post this!). While the next page load won't be so big due to shared cached resources, you get the idea: websites are pretty heavy these days. Whether or not the package is suitable will depend on how you use the net.

outtatune

You can get 10GB a month for £5; even more for less with new customer deals.
https://kenstechtips.com/index.php/5-pound-sim-only-deals

How much are you paying and when does your contract end?