How to stay below your data cap on Android


News date:

March 24, 2012, 7:48 AM — Studies suggest that Android users consume the most data--which is great news for the tech industry, but perhaps not so great for the user who has to pay that pesky wireless bill at the end of each month.

As 4G networks become more popular and unlimited data plans drop like flies, it's important that you know how to cut down your data usage without seriously compromising your mobile Android experience. Here are a few tips to help you track and reduce your data usage so you can avoid overage charges and data throttling.

1. Monitor Your Data Usage

The first step in reducing your data usage is figuring out how much data you actually use. You can check your data consumption as measured by your phone (which may be slightly different from what your carrier thinks you're using) by digging into your wireless settings menu. For the purposes of this guide, we're using a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.2), but some of these tips may work differently depending on what phone you own and which version of Android you have installed.

Open your Settings menu and navigate to Wireless & Networks, Data usage. Here you can see how much data you've used during your current billing cycle, set a mobile data limit that will disable your mobile data connection at a certain point, and view a list of apps that use data and how much they consume.

You can also monitor your data usage via third-party apps like Onavo, or carrier-specific apps like Verizon's My Verizon or AT&T's myAT&T. The primary benefit of using a carrier-specific app is that your carrier will always have the most accurate estimation of how much data you'll be charged for.

If your carrier doesn't offer a data usage app, or if you want an app that has more features, Onavo is a free data-monitoring app for Android that lets you do the usual--set a data cap, see a breakdown of which apps use the most data, and see how much data you've used in any given cycle. Onavo also employs proprietary algorithms to analyze your data usage and let you know whether your data plan is a good fit for you based on that usage (the default Android data usage tab does not analyze usage). Most of these features are also available as Android home-screen widgets that make it easy to monitor data usage at a glance.

2. Determine How Much Data You Need

Here's a quick and easy way to cut data costs: If you're not using all of your data each month, move to a lower plan. To determine whether you should move to a lower plan, either analyze your data usage for a couple of months using the aforementioned data-usage apps, or calculate how much data you'll need with a usage calculator.

During PCWorld's smartphone data usage tests, we found this data usage calculator from Verizon Wireless to be fairly accurate at determining how much data we needed per month. You can also find data usage calculators at other carriers' sites: AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

3. Find Free Wi-Fi

You can also minimize how much cellular data you use by connecting to Wi-Fi networks whenever they're available. But it can be a hassle to find and connect to unknown Wi-Fi networks on your Android phone, and it usually involves opening your Settings menu and trying unsecured networks one after another to see if they work.



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