13 tips to help you beat sky-rocketing data costs

Cape Town - Fin24 has been inundated with complaints over unexpected data bills.

We have sent these complaints onto the mobile networks concerned with some favourable outcomes.

Vodacom has provided us with some useful tips to help customers avoid getting bill shock.

How can customers manage their data?

1. If you have a Smartphone your device is likely going to use data. To get the best experience on your Smartphone you should buy a data bundle. A data bundle would ensure that you use data at a significantly lower rate than if you did not have a data bundle.

2. Consider changing your social media settings to not always auto play videos or only to auto play in a Wi-Fi area.

3. Also consider changing settings for apps and software updates to not update automatically but only when you manually choose to do so.

4. When you are watching or downloading videos there is an option to lower the quality.

5. When you upload/post photo’s or videos on social media you can choose to not use the highest quality

6. Vodacom sends you notifications when you are running low on data and when your data bundle finishes please take note of these notifications as they help you keep track of your data balance.

7. You can find affordable data offers that are tailored to your data spend through Vodacom’s Just For You offering.

How do you effectively manage the rate of data use?

8. To stop apps from running in the background you can restrict your background data.  Remember if you restrict background data you will not get the best experience from your apps. For example if you restrict your WhatsApp data, you will only be able to receive your WhatsApp messages when you open the WhatsApp app yourself and not at the immediate point in which the message was sent (the pop ups that you get on top of your screen).

9. Turn off automatic updates over data connections and rather use Wi-Fi for backing up lots of files or updating your apps.

10. Check how much data individual apps are using and adjust the settings where possible.

11. Make sure you have a quality anti-virus program on your device

12. Streaming music and watching movies on your phone uses data very quickly – check your settings. Make sure that you always have a data bundle.

13. Constantly check your data balance and buy more data as you need it.

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