The Wireless Application Service Providers’ Association (WASPA) offers mobile data saving tips to help consumer avoid bill shock for consumers this December holiday season.
“South Africa’s mobile content and applications industry is committed to longterm sustainability. Helping consumers to trim excessive mobile data spend is one way of ensuring a healthy local mobile sector,” says Ilonka Badenhorst, GM of WASPA. “What better time of year to provide budget-stretching advice than in the run-up to the festive season.”
WASPA offers the following advice:
* Know your usage pattern – History is the best predictor of the future. With this in mind, be honest with yourself and accept how much data you are likely to consume over December based on what you’ve consumed over the past year. And then add some. If you’re a prepaid user, don’t skimp on those initial mobile data recharges because you’ll pay more per megabyte if you keep recharging in small amounts throughout the month.
* Know your kids’ likely usage pattern – If you’re a parent, December’s the month for out-of-school children to really ramp up their mobile data usage. Be aware that parental mobile controls can be useful for restricting access to adult content, as well as being handy when it comes to restricting excessive mobile data usage. You can restrict app usage to certain hours of the day and turn off in-app purchasing.
* Knowledge is power – Downloading your mobile network’s usage app, opting to receive SMS data usage updates and downloading special data-saving apps will all help you to remain on top of data usage in order to make informed decisions. The more you save on background data, the more data you’ll have to use on mobile apps you really want to use.
* Make friends with WiFi – Switch your settings over to any available free WiFi networks now and again and you’ll be amazed at how this will stretch your mobile data allowance. It goes without saying that WiFi really comes into its own while mobile contract customers are roaming abroad.
“Mobile data should be enjoyed as much as we have traditionally enjoyed cellphone calls with friends and family over the very season meant for friends and family,” Badenhorst adds.
