10 Ways to Reduce Data Usage in Your Home
My husband and I recently received a letter in the mail from our internet service provider informing us that new data limitations would be imposed on our existing internet plan. While this is unfortunate, it does not always imply that we will be paying more. In reality, our service provider (Cox Communications) is one of the last to impose such restrictions.
How much data does your household really use? Depending on your internet service provider, this should be displayed on your account/statement. With Cox, we will receive an email when we reach 85 percent of our monthly data consumption and another when we reach 100 percent of our monthly data usage.
Curious as to how much data you can stream/use before going over? This useful tool will come in handy regardless of which service you use. We tried every setting on this tool and it still shows that we are under the new monthly limit. If you play a lot of online games or stream a lot, you may have a problem.
My family is presently only utilizing around half of the authorized data use, and my husband (the previous cable man at said business) estimates that only about 2% of homes will exceed the 1TB per month limit.
Methods To Reduce Data Use In Your Home
1. Disable maps/GPS/location in your phone’s apps. These location services are continuously operating in the background, and if your phone is linked to your home wifi, it is simply soaking up data. Go to settings and location to find out which applications are following you and disable them. It’s also a little scary.
2. Alter the browsers on your pc. On laptops and desktops, Google Chrome compresses (i.e. consumes less) data. Hey, it all adds up in the end. If you don’t want to switch browsers, consider using the “light” version of your favorite browser.
3. Rather than streaming music, download it. Streaming music and/or video consumes a lot of data. Instead, listen to music from your iTunes library or dig out those old CDs.
4. Disconnect from the internet. Do you have limitless data on your cell phone? I’m sure we do. While wifi speeds up your phone’s browser, it also reduces data use in your home. Get off the wifi if you have unlimited phone data!
5. Inspect your router. There are routers that show you what devices are connected at any one moment and allow you to allocate data use per day to certain devices.
6. Do not just switch off the television. My kids have a bad tendency of shutting off the TV when the Roku, Chromecast, or Amazon Fire Stick is still streaming. Make it a habit for them to turn everything off at once.
7. Stream in reduced quality on YouTube. Do you spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos? I have numerous channels that I subscribe to and watch on a regular basis. Did you know that you can watch in lower quality and use less data? On YouTube, simply click the video’s settings (the gear) and adjust the video’s quality.
8. Reduce the quality of Netflix streaming. Why play in Ultra HD/4K if you don’t have a 4K TV? Reduce that to a reasonable/tolerable level and save the data. Don’t want to keep lowering the quality all the time? Just do it when you see you’re going to go over your monthly limit. This option may be found under account > Playback settings.
9. Disable auto-play. Do you fall asleep when watching TV? You should look at your streaming service’s auto play function. I know Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime all allow you to disable autoplay. It’s pointless to watch a video after you’ve fallen asleep.
10. Check that your router’s security is enabled. Is your wifi unprotected by a password? Your neighbors may be accessing your info without your knowledge. Securing, securing, securing!
