Tips on Saving Mobile Data Bill

Mobile internet has gained substantial popularity in India. The companies like Aircel and TATA Docomo created primary demand for Mobile Internet and most of the Indians in non metros have experienced internet for the first time on Mobiles only. With the launch of 3G by operators in India, the popularity and subscription of data services have gone up substantially. The popularity of social networking sites, games, music and e-mail etc. have made mobile internet indispensable for youth. But if you are on tight budget and little frivolous especially with 3G connection you may end up with heavy bills.

Here are few tips on how you can keep your Mobile internet bill in check:

Avoid using pay as you use plans rather take data plan: If you frequently use mobile internet ,then it’s better to subscribe to some data plan. Pay as you use plans are normally very costly for ex. Airtel charges 30 paise/20 KB (Rs.15/MB), Vodafone 10 p/10KB. Rather the data plans are very cost effective and varied options too are available in the market.

Pay as you go plans are good for occasional users.

Switch to wi-fi wherever possible: Now free wi-fi hotspots are available at many cafes, restaurants, malls, Airports, institutions etc. Switch to free wi-fi for internet ,if your handset is wi-fi enabled. Even if at your home

Use browsers which use data compression Technology:

There are some browsers(like Opera mini) which compress the data before delivering to your mobile phone. This way it reduces data usage .

Open mobile versions of websites: Desktop versions of websites are normally very data heavy as these have images, ads etc. While the mobile versions of websites have important contents only and thus these loads in very minimum data download.

Do not keep configured e-mail accounts in Always ON/Update Mode:

If you keep your configured mails in always on mode then it automatcally downloads all the mails on to mobile as and when it is delivered in your mail box. Even spam mails too get downloaded and you are charged for that. It is better to access mails through browser if you want to keep data usage low.

Disable automatic software/ app updates:

Many of the softwares or apps keep running updation in background , if you have kept them in automatic update mode. It is wise to disable automatic update for these.

View Video content judiciously: Watching videos will not be a wise idea if you are on tight budget because 10 minutes of video may eat up data equivalent to around an hour of other normal stuffs. And control the temptation of clicking on View HD Video on 3G connection. Similarly do not upload high resolution images or videos .

Do not leave pages open for long , which automatically reloads periodically: Some of the websites automatically reload/ refresh their pages. Do not keep these open for long.