Author Topic: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!  (Read 6454 times)

alsoknownasDean

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OK, here's a challenge that some of us can get behind.

Yeah, smartphones are now ubiquitous, and honestly they're quite useful. But, is our phone-clown use costing us a lot of money? Or worse, are we addicted?

I've got an iPhone 5, and regularly use it for browsing, messaging apps, and streaming music (I have a bit of a Spotify habit). I use Facebook via the mobile browser after I realised that the app auto-loads videos. My data use, while not in the realm of those that use 5GB+ a month, is still pretty hefty. For the last few months I've averaged between 1.5-2.5GB per month. That doesn't include any use on WiFi.

Where I am now, it's 9:50pm on the 30th of April. My mobile plan works on calendar months, so I'm about to tick over to a new month. As of now, my mobile provider is showing I've used 2351MB (including wasting a fair bit earlier today) for April. For the month of May, I'm aiming to keep it under half that, 1175MB. Extra points if I can keep it to below 1GB :)

It's not going to save me an awful lot of money (changing to the next data tier down (1500MB) will only save me $3 a month), but it's about more than just the money. :)

Who else is in? Who has some suggestions to reduce data use?
« Last Edit: April 30, 2015, 06:17:00 AM by alsoknownasDean »

Daley

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2015, 08:17:56 AM »
Heya Dean! I can't really do much to effectively participate in this challenge given the fact that this past month, P'tel is reporting that I've used ZERO mobile data. I can't physically halve that usage without destroying all of known creation. (For the record: 40 minutes, 55 texts, 0MB data - April 2015 mobile usage - $3.10)

Who has some suggestions to reduce data use?

I can, however, answer this one with the old classic, guide-related post: What is mobile media costing you?
« Last Edit: April 30, 2015, 08:21:51 AM by I.P. Daley »

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #2 on: May 01, 2015, 07:54:32 AM »
Wow Daley, I'm impressed that 40min and 55 text messages costs that little, let alone using no data!

So far, one day down, and I've used 28.61MB. I've turned mobile data off for Safari (only turning it on when needed), and switched my phone to 3G only (with the added advantage of improved battery life). I used 6.6MB when switching on Spotify to turn it to Offline mode, and another 3MB when loading up the footy tipping app...oops. :)

To keep below 1175MB, I've got to use under 37.9MB per day. To use under 1024MB, I've got to keep it to 33MB.

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2015, 08:11:59 AM »
This challenge was super easy for me.
I was kicked off of the family plan, so it was my goal to get the cheapest plan possible. From the recommendation of MMM I switched to Republic Wireless. I now use exactly 0 data, except when I'm connected to wifi.

Do I need to be having my face stuck in a phone, on facebook or watching stupid cat videos, when I should be more attentive to what's happening around me? No.

It also gives me SO MUCH satisfaction to brag to people (like my mom)that I only pay $10/mo whenever they complain about their expensive phone breaking, or that they pay like $80 per month.

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2015, 01:14:26 PM »
From the recommendation of MMM I switched to Republic Wireless. I now use exactly 0 data, except when I'm connected to wifi.

I did the same thing, Crustache. At first I stuck with 3G data, but recently I realized that any time I actually NEED data there's wi-fi. I don't need data in the car, or out biking, or hanging out with friends, or any of that, so I cut myself back to the $10 plan a couple days ago and it's working out well so far. I'm learning to check my phone less often and focus on the world around me instead.

To the OP, I hope other people take your challenge. It's really admirable to cut the cord, so to speak, so you're not so worried about being connected and updated at all times. Be sure to let us know how you do and how you feel by the end of it!

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #5 on: May 02, 2015, 02:29:50 PM »
I'm in. Our contact is ending in a few months and I want to explore the lower data plans. This would give me a good idea of what I actually need!

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #6 on: May 03, 2015, 01:50:06 AM »
OK, here's a challenge that some of us can get behind.

Yeah, smartphones are now ubiquitous, and honestly they're quite useful. But, is our phone-clown use costing us a lot of money? Or worse, are we addicted?

I've got an iPhone 5, and regularly use it for browsing, messaging apps, and streaming music (I have a bit of a Spotify habit). I use Facebook via the mobile browser after I realised that the app auto-loads videos. My data use, while not in the realm of those that use 5GB+ a month, is still pretty hefty. For the last few months I've averaged between 1.5-2.5GB per month. That doesn't include any use on WiFi.

Where I am now, it's 9:50pm on the 30th of April. My mobile plan works on calendar months, so I'm about to tick over to a new month. As of now, my mobile provider is showing I've used 2351MB (including wasting a fair bit earlier today) for April. For the month of May, I'm aiming to keep it under half that, 1175MB. Extra points if I can keep it to below 1GB :)

It's not going to save me an awful lot of money (changing to the next data tier down (1500MB) will only save me $3 a month), but it's about more than just the money. :)

Who else is in? Who has some suggestions to reduce data use?

Like I P Daily, I am down to zero monthly use. I finally got the super top secret wi-fi password at work. Saves me at least $3 per month on my Ting bill. Not exactly a fortune, but I choose to look at it as $36 per year in free money.

NotJen

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #7 on: May 03, 2015, 07:56:44 AM »
Once I switched to Ting, I found it quite easy to reduce my data use, way beyond 50%.

On AT&T, I didn't pay attention to data as I was always under my allowance, but somehow my usage was up to 1.5GB a month.  My first month on Ting, I used 99MB!  I was shocked.  I even took a trip during that time.  The only thing I did was make sure I used wireless whenever available.  Previously, I ignored it, and just used cellular data.  Now, I keep my data turned off on my phone except when I want to use it.  No other change to my actual usage.  My second month on Ting was 37MB.

minority_finance_mo

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #8 on: May 03, 2015, 11:45:11 AM »
Honestly, like 50% of my cell phone data is MMM, and the other 50% is actual calls/texts via Google Hangouts, so not much to cut there for me... (I use ~350MB/month for reference.)

Daley

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #9 on: May 03, 2015, 12:05:22 PM »
Honestly, like 50% of my cell phone data is MMM, and the other 50% is actual calls/texts via Google Hangouts, so not much to cut there for me... (I use ~350MB/month for reference.)

Try using the forum WAP interface from the bottom of the page, or use a browser that turns off image loading.

minority_finance_mo

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #10 on: May 03, 2015, 03:50:16 PM »
Honestly, like 50% of my cell phone data is MMM, and the other 50% is actual calls/texts via Google Hangouts, so not much to cut there for me... (I use ~350MB/month for reference.)

Try using the forum WAP interface from the bottom of the page, or use a browser that turns off image loading.

WOW! Today I learned... Definitely something I will be using in the future. Thanks IP.

Daley

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #11 on: May 03, 2015, 04:44:23 PM »
WOW! Today I learned... Definitely something I will be using in the future. Thanks IP.

*tips hat*

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #12 on: May 04, 2015, 07:40:56 AM »
Honestly, like 50% of my cell phone data is MMM, and the other 50% is actual calls/texts via Google Hangouts, so not much to cut there for me... (I use ~350MB/month for reference.)

Try using the forum WAP interface from the bottom of the page, or use a browser that turns off image loading.

Awesome, I might give that a shot too, thanks Daley :)

Four days into the month, and I'm at 119MB. The first few days I averaged around 30MB a day (although used 47MB on Sunday, including navigation, and using it as a hotspot for my dad's laptop). Today, however, I managed to get to 14.4MB.

I've started saving stuff I want to read to Pocket on wifi, using Offline mode on Spotify (and downloading the playlists to the device), and having mobile data switched off for Safari most of the time (which reduces the temptation for a quick checking of Facebook/MMM forums).

I don't know if it's going to help much, but I also went and switched 4G off. I figure keeping it to 3G only might help reduce the data use (and Optus 3G isn't as slow as it used to be, I guess all the data hogs switched to 4G).

Added advantage of the lower data use is lower battery use. Oftentimes I'd read a few articles and listen to some music on the phone during my lunch break, and get back after lunch with a phone at about 40% battery. Today it was at 70% when I got back doing much the same stuff.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2015, 07:53:25 AM by alsoknownasDean »

Daley

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #13 on: May 04, 2015, 09:13:00 AM »
Awesome, I might give that a shot too, thanks Daley :)

De nada.

For you and others (just so you know), Dolphin Browser on both iOS and Android has the option to completely turn off image loading on web pages, and I believe Opera still has similar settings - though I think they just resize and compress by routing everything through a remote proxy server. I'd say about 80%+ of web page traffic are graphics or media, and you'd be surprised how functional most sites still are with that stuff turned off.

Text doesn't take much bandwidth, yet it's the most useful bit of communication. The easiest way to reduce mobile data usage is to eliminate mobile media reliance - images, sounds, video, etc. Pre-load GPS data, don't stream entertainment (pre-load it, too), stay off social media, don't download e-mail attachments unless necessary, and disable image loading when using the internet. Be mindful of these things, and there's no reason why you can't easily keep mobile data under 100MB/month.

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2015, 07:25:40 AM »
Awesome, I might give that a shot too, thanks Daley :)

De nada.

For you and others (just so you know), Dolphin Browser on both iOS and Android has the option to completely turn off image loading on web pages, and I believe Opera still has similar settings - though I think they just resize and compress by routing everything through a remote proxy server. I'd say about 80%+ of web page traffic are graphics or media, and you'd be surprised how functional most sites still are with that stuff turned off.

Text doesn't take much bandwidth, yet it's the most useful bit of communication. The easiest way to reduce mobile data usage is to eliminate mobile media reliance - images, sounds, video, etc. Pre-load GPS data, don't stream entertainment (pre-load it, too), stay off social media, don't download e-mail attachments unless necessary, and disable image loading when using the internet. Be mindful of these things, and there's no reason why you can't easily keep mobile data under 100MB/month.

I just installed Dolphin, and yeah, it's surprisingly functional (and I can always load the page in Safari if I need the full-fat version). Lightning fast too! Thanks!

I've managed to get today's usage down to 9.61MB. I'm actually enjoying the challenge. It's helping me wean myself off Facebook too, which is an added bonus (haven't been on Facebook today).

If I go too much lower, I'll have to start looking at things like push notifications and how often things update. It seems some apps auto-update in the background.

Daley

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2015, 08:04:12 AM »
If I go too much lower, I'll have to start looking at things like push notifications and how often things update. It seems some apps auto-update in the background.

http://www.gottabemobile.com/2014/10/31/how-to-stop-iphone-apps-from-using-mobile-data-in-ios-8/
https://blog.knowroaming.com/make-data-roaming/

As it is, your current rate if sustainable is under 300MB/month. Those two links should hopefully get you lower still with the background data.



Don't know of any alternate options for the iOS crowd, but for the Android users trying to cut mobile data but push/timely email delivery on mobile data is important, try using K-9 Mail instead of the native mail client. You can adjust update frequency, and are given granular control over exactly how much of the emails are downloaded (headers only, headers and first X-kb of message, entire message without attachments, etc.). Needless to say, when given a little tweaking, it uses considerably less data than the native mail client.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2015, 08:13:06 AM by I.P. Daley »

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #16 on: May 10, 2015, 03:02:13 AM »
Nice, I'm sure I can further optimise my usage :)

I've had a few heavier days (Friday I used just under 32MB), but currently on the evening of the 10th I'm sitting pretty at 223MB. A lazy Sunday has meant I've only used a few megabytes today.

So far I'm tracking quite well, and should make the 1175MB goal easily. Maybe I'll make it harder, and see if I can reach a goal of 50% of my lowest month's usage over the last six months. In February I used 1598MB, so if I can keep it below 799MB, that's even better :)

Elle 8

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #17 on: May 10, 2015, 05:41:09 AM »
I use less than 10 MB per month.  Yes you read that right, <10MB.  My $12 monthly plan (with Page Plus) includes 250 minutes, 250 texts and 10 MB.  I rarely go over these limits, but if I do, I have a cash balance it can pull from so I'm not left without service.  I put $10 cash on last July and still have $4.77 left.  I do use a dealer to apply the monthly plan every month so I don't need to remember and do it myself, which is $3 extra per month.  So my monthly cost over the last 10 months has been about $15.50.  The only drawback is that this low cost plan is limited to 3G.  To use a 4G phone with this carrier you'd have to pay at least $30 per month.

I can't believe the money I wasted before I switched over last year.  I never really even thought about switching to one of these discount carriers until I started reading MMM.  Now, I'm saving $90 per month on the two lines I've switched over!  The second line is a flip phone, no data usage, that's averaging about $5 per month.

Daley

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #18 on: May 10, 2015, 07:39:32 AM »
Keep at it, Dean... you'll be in the sub 100MB club soon enough.



My $12 monthly plan (with Page Plus) includes 250 minutes, 250 texts and 10 MB.

You might want to look into Selectel and BYO Wireless these days. Since the buyout, Page Plus' customer service has gone downhill. If you don't need roaming off the Verizon network, data and texting gets cheaper.

Elle 8

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #19 on: May 10, 2015, 07:26:58 PM »

My $12 monthly plan (with Page Plus) includes 250 minutes, 250 texts and 10 MB.

You might want to look into Selectel and BYO Wireless these days. Since the buyout, Page Plus' customer service has gone downhill. If you don't need roaming off the Verizon network, data and texting gets cheaper.

Thanks I.P., I will check them out!  I don't need roaming, but I do want to stay on a Verizon mvno.  I have heard that customer service has gone downhill, but in the ten months I've been with them I've never had to use customer service.  Have you heard anything (good or bad) about the new mvno, Puppy Wireless?  I was thinking of switching over to them when they get 4G since I already have a phone I can use, IF they offer low price options on 4G.  Otherwise, I'll just stick with 3G for now.

Daley

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #20 on: May 10, 2015, 07:41:56 PM »
Have you heard anything (good or bad) about the new mvno, Puppy Wireless?

I'm familiar with Puppy, it's the same owners behind Kitty Wireless, and I'm fond of 'em. Age of the MVNO itself is the only thing keeping them out of the guide, currently.

Elle 8

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #21 on: May 10, 2015, 08:11:28 PM »
Have you heard anything (good or bad) about the new mvno, Puppy Wireless?

I'm familiar with Puppy, it's the same owners behind Kitty Wireless, and I'm fond of 'em. Age of the MVNO itself is the only thing keeping them out of the guide, currently.

That's good to hear.  I've been following their inception on the Kitty forum and it's been fascinating to me.  I probably would have switched over already but my 3G PP phone is not compatible.  Since I already have the Samsung Galaxy S III from my high-spending Verizon days, I figured I'd wait until they offer 4G.  Thanks!

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #22 on: May 10, 2015, 08:54:58 PM »
Keep at it, Dean... you'll be in the sub 100MB club soon enough.

Haha, one step at a time. To be honest I'd be happy enough with the sub-500MB club. Most plans which include enough minutes/texts (no landline phone) seem to include at least 500MB anyway, so I'd be really reaching a point of diminishing returns. That and that my phone isn't on wifi at work all day. :)

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #23 on: May 15, 2015, 05:58:50 AM »
So I'm halfway through the month, and I've used 361MB (there's been a couple of heavier days).

Although, I've just decided to change carriers, so I guess I won't be finishing the month with this one. I was able to get an excellent deal with one of the big three (Aussie) carriers using my current phone for only a few bucks more than my low-cost MVNO.

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #24 on: May 23, 2015, 11:01:41 PM »
It seems that some of my new data-reduction habits have stuck, even after changing to the less-Mustachian 'unlimited' plan with a different carrier. I'm at 130.5MB, on day 6 of the month.

Main things that have changed:

- My Facebook usage has dropped. Hooray.
- I've left mobile data switched off for Safari, and use Dolphin (with images turned off) for browsing on mobile data.
- Spotify is set to Offline mode. With a 64GB device (and Spotify Premium) I can sync heaps of tunes to the device anyway.

I switched mobile data on for Safari the other day, jumped on a website to find the address of a store, and turned Safari mobile data off afterwards. It used 3MB. 6MB when I did the same for Facebook. That data use sure adds up.

Even though I'll be still at about 750MB-1GB a month overall, that's still quite a bit less than previously, for very little reduction in utility of the phone. Better battery life too.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2015, 11:10:59 PM by alsoknownasDean »

Mikhial

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #25 on: May 27, 2015, 10:10:53 AM »
Last month I almost hit my 2GB limit fairly quickly. I had to last third of the month on not much data. It turned out to be easier than I thought. This month I'm doing a trial run to see if I can keep my data low. In the past week, I've use 199MB. Not the lowest amount, but it's under half of what I was using.

Right now, I added DroidWall to my phone to block the use of all apps except a few when not on WiFi. It's not too bad not being able to use data whenever I want. The worst is when I actually need to use it, and have to switch off DroidWall and go back and search. Trying to find that restaurant menu just took twice as long.

This is all to see if it's worth it to switch off of a family plan where I'm paying $50 a month. Hopefully I can save some cash

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #26 on: May 30, 2015, 08:31:40 AM »
Or make the challenge to live WITHOUT data... or at least cellular data. We're on Republic Wireless and get free wifi data, but have never upgraded to pay for cellular data. We started our daughter on her own phone last year with unlimited talk and text (and man can she rack up the texts!) and free wifi, but no mobile data. Even though her friends have mobile data, she only gets data on wifi, but she's ok with it, and realizes what we are saving... and that she gets her own phone.
So perhaps don't just cut back... go without (but with wifi).

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #27 on: May 30, 2015, 08:41:54 PM »
Or make the challenge to live WITHOUT data... or at least cellular data. We're on Republic Wireless and get free wifi data, but have never upgraded to pay for cellular data. We started our daughter on her own phone last year with unlimited talk and text (and man can she rack up the texts!) and free wifi, but no mobile data. Even though her friends have mobile data, she only gets data on wifi, but she's ok with it, and realizes what we are saving... and that she gets her own phone.
So perhaps don't just cut back... go without (but with wifi).

I'm advocating a 'baby steps' approach rather than a radical change. Although going cold turkey could work for some.

In my case, having some mobile data is useful, and there are some things (ie: banking) that I don't trust public wifi for (which itself isn't everywhere here). That and iMessage wouldn't work without it :)

As it's my primary phone (read: I have no landline), the amount of calls and messages I make are enough that PAYG would cost more than a typical plan, and, almost without exception, any plan of $20 and up here includes data.

However, I'm currently at 201.8MB after 12 days. I think that my carrier under-reports data though, as my iPhone shows 250MB of mobile data usage in roughly the same time period. Still a good effort in itself compared to the ~2GB or so of previous months. I found when I switched from a major carrier to an MVNO, my reported data use increased, but when I switched back to another major carrier, it's dropped again.

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #28 on: June 11, 2015, 06:04:22 AM »
I'm now 24 days into the month, and sitting at 435.7MB. At this rate I'll probably use maybe 550-600MB for the month. Let's see.

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #29 on: June 21, 2015, 06:47:30 AM »
OK, here's a challenge that some of us can get behind.

Yeah, smartphones are now ubiquitous, and honestly they're quite useful. But, is our phone-clown use costing us a lot of money? Or worse, are we addicted?

I've got an iPhone 5, and regularly use it for browsing, messaging apps, and streaming music (I have a bit of a Spotify habit). I use Facebook via the mobile browser after I realised that the app auto-loads videos. My data use, while not in the realm of those that use 5GB+ a month, is still pretty hefty. For the last few months I've averaged between 1.5-2.5GB per month. That doesn't include any use on WiFi.

Where I am now, it's 9:50pm on the 30th of April. My mobile plan works on calendar months, so I'm about to tick over to a new month. As of now, my mobile provider is showing I've used 2351MB (including wasting a fair bit earlier today) for April. For the month of May, I'm aiming to keep it under half that, 1175MB. Extra points if I can keep it to below 1GB :)

It's not going to save me an awful lot of money (changing to the next data tier down (1500MB) will only save me $3 a month), but it's about more than just the money. :)

Who else is in? Who has some suggestions to reduce data use?

So I've now finished a full month (admittedly on a new carrier so my usage restarted mid-month). The total usage: 569.81MB.

I've sent 155 text messages (including 3 MMS) and made about 190 minutes of calls in that time.

That's just under a quarter of my data use for April (and about a third of my normal data use for the last year or so).

What's more, that was still using mobile data, still browsing online during my lunch break, still using messaging apps and the occasional bit of streaming audio, still using 4G too.

I've been able to improve my battery life too, and I've been able to massively reduce my Facebook use. Win win.

It's been a good challenge :)
« Last Edit: June 21, 2015, 06:50:35 AM by alsoknownasDean »

Mikhial

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #30 on: June 25, 2015, 11:01:41 AM »
I just finished my first billing cycle where I was actively trying to reduce my data. I used a total of 424MB compared to the previous month's 1.85GB. Not too bad. My contract just ran up as well, so I'm free the leave Verizon if I wish. I just have to figure out if my phone is locked and how to get it unlocked if it is.

Daley

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #31 on: June 25, 2015, 11:51:45 AM »
I just finished my first billing cycle where I was actively trying to reduce my data. I used a total of 424MB compared to the previous month's 1.85GB. Not too bad. My contract just ran up as well, so I'm free the leave Verizon if I wish. I just have to figure out if my phone is locked and how to get it unlocked if it is.

Depending on the LTE handset model, many (if not most) Verizon handsets are already carrier unlocked from the factory for GSM service both domestically and globally due to the spectrum purchase Verizon made for LTE support... whether the right bands are there for physical support on the handset with various domestic GSM MVNO carriers is quite another matter entirely (such as with AT&T or T-Mobile MVNOs like Airvoice or P'tel) and requires a bit of research. That said, Selectel and Puppy Wireless (both Verizon MVNOs) can activate Verizon LTE handsets now. Verizon CDMA/LTE handset activation on Verizon MVNOs isn't exactly about a "carrier unlocked" status so much as having the ESN whitelisted by either having the contract completed or the ETF paid off.

No matter what, you probably don't need to do anything to the phone, it's pretty well ready to go to a handful of Verizon MVNOs and potentially any GSM MVNO you want, so long as the physical network band support is there.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2015, 11:57:05 AM by I.P. Daley »

Amasa

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #32 on: July 10, 2015, 09:02:54 AM »
this past month, P'tel is reporting that I've used ZERO mobile data. I can't physically halve that usage without destroying all of known creation.

You should be able to manage it. Zero bytes divided by two would still be zero bytes... no need to cause the universe to implode on itself.

alsoknownasDean

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #33 on: October 11, 2015, 08:17:26 AM »
I'm tempted to give this another crack soon. I recently bought a new phone and was OK with data at first, but now I'm starting to get a bit antimustachian with it (last month I used about 3.5GB).

Chrome doesn't have an option to turn off image loading, so I'll have to try another browser. I don't like the Android version of Dolphin quite as much as the iOS version, so I'll need to find something I do like where I can turn images off.

Does anyone else agree that one's usage tends to grow/shrink to accommodate the plan they're on? I was on a 3GB plan for a while and comfortably used under it, then switched to an 8GB plan and my usage has increased.

Datastache

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Re: Challenge Time: Reduce your mobile (cell) phone data use by 50%!
« Reply #34 on: October 11, 2015, 09:19:19 AM »
Virtually all my cell data use comes from background stuff the phone insists on doing. I'm expecting to hit about 30 or 40 MB for this month, and that's including an accidental spike from when I installed an app and forgot to turn off cell data for it.