by SIX (6) WAYS TO GET YOU DATA SUBSCRIPTION TO LAST LONGER (VOL 1)
With every passing moment, someone, somewhere in Nigeria, is complaining of their data finishing fast. On social media, you see posts like “After this sub, na pigeon we go dey use dey send message because I don tire”. Messages like that show you the frustration of a lot of Nigerians with the rate at which their data subscription is consumed, especially given the current increase in data prices by the top internet provider in the country; MTN.
A recent poll carried out by Raiza Digital Services, suggests that the average young Nigerian uses around 8GB of data every week. Some people consume way more, with video streaming platforms like Netflix, AppleTV, Amazon Prime Videos, YouTube and many more, plus the unending video reels found on several social media platforms. Also with involvement of a lot of people in online jobs and other income sources like Digital marketing, Binary trading (Crypto, Forex, Stocks, etc), and ecommerce, internet data is in constant consumption these days (Get cheaper data for your online needs here).
With little money and huge internet needs, Nigerians are, on a daily basis, looking for ways to get the most out of their Internet Data subscriptions. Here are Five (5) ways to minimize your phone’s internet data consumption.
1. MANUALLY CAP YOUR DATA USAGE:
You can manually set your phone to not exceed a certain daily, weekly, or monthly usage. This way, you can minimize the amount of data that your phone uses up for different activities.
To cap your data usage, go to Settings → Connections → Data usage → Billing cycle and data warning → Set data limit. Then choose the data limit you want under it and you’re set to go.
You can also simply turn on Data Saver under Data usage to automatically reduce data consumption without particularly setting a data usage cap.
2. DISABLE DATA ACCESS FOR UNUSED APPS:
There are apps in your phone that you rarely use but they still consume some of your data in the background (This is especially true for Android phones). To disable these apps’ data usage, go to Settings → Connections → Data usage → Mobile data usage. Scroll down to see the data usage of each app on your phone. Then click on the app(s) you want to disable and turn the “Allow background data usage” off.
3. USE A VPN SERVICE:
This is the simplest and most effective way to reduce data usage. A VPN encrypts all your internet traffic, which means that you are able to browse the web without your ISP being able to see what you’re doing. This also means that you will be using less data as it is not necessary to download content again and again.
4. TURN OF VIDEO AUTOPLAY:
Video autoplay is a feature on many browsers, which automatically plays videos as they load in the background without any user interaction required. This can lead to an increased amount of data usage, so it’s best to turn this feature off in order to save some data for other things like music streaming or browsing the internet for information. To turn video autoplay off in your browser, first open your browser, then open the browser menu (the three horizontal lines), select Settings → Site Settings. Scroll down to auto-play. Select it and then turn off the Auto-play. You can even allow one or two important sites by clicking on + ADD SITE EXCEPTIONS” (This option is not available for Chrome users, Chrome does not have a built-in Turn off Auto Play setting.
5. USE PUBLIC WIFI WHENEVER POSSIBLE:
Public WiFi is often free or cheaper than mobile data plans and can make up for any costs by saving on your mobile plan with free WiFi when available. Public WiFi connections
And finally,
6. GET YOUR DATA SUBSCRIPTION FROM THE RIGHT SOURCE:
Here, I saved the best for last, because this is definitely the best way (other than just spending huge amounts of money) to get the best out of your data sub. You may wonder if all internet data are not the same, and what does the source have to do with the durability of the data? Think of it like this, sometimes, you may hear people saying they don’t want to buy petrol (fuel) from a particular station because their meter is not good. They may give you one liter and you will even see it read on their meter, but if you measure that one litre against one litre from another station, you will see the difference. Data can be like that sometimes. Just because 1GB is written there, doesn’t mean that you actually get to enjoy a full one GB. To enjoy full 1GB at an affordable price, I suggest you use a platform like S.Mobile. You can visit their site here, register and get access to quality data. Their current 1GB price is around N299.9 and they also give you a cashback of around N0.30 per GB on your transactions. Click here to get started.
Ok. That’s all for volume one of How To Get Your Data Subscription To Last Longer (Vol 1). Hope you found it helpful and we’ll see you in Volume 2.
