The price of data is skyrocketing and probably ripping you off your savings. This time is critical for people living paycheck to paycheck to be careful on how much they spend consuming bandwidth.
Apparently, the emergence of smartphone and the decline in cellular usage regarding calling your friends and people etc. poses a new challenge from a financial viewpoint. There is more patronage on the purchase of data plans and the amount of money you spend on these data packages matters.
You should be looking at data plans that are cheap and affordable, while getting the best of it, without incurring additional costs or add-ons.
Mobile operators in Nigeria are thriving hard to make sure we get the most affordable data plans. The question is now, how affordable are these data plans and how much are you setting aside on a monthly basis for data?
An average civilized and ever learning Nigerian uses at least 3Gig of data per month. This can vary depending on the situation. Some people could consume 10 to 20Gig monthly if you belong to that category that means you are spending more on data.
Whether you like it or not, the fact is that the emergence of smartphone and internet has a significant impact on our budget and spending habit.
However, some tricks and hacks would help you save at least 30 percent of what you currently spend on data bundles. In other words, you would be saving, for instance, 30 out of every 100 you currently spend.
What are the tricks?
There are about three ways we consume data
• Surfing the Internet
• Streaming Online Videos
• Downloading Videos
Surfing the Internet: This is just about opening web pages, browsing web pages to gather information for a purpose. It could be going through social media platforms as well, reading news feeds, sending messages, etc.
Using the Glo network is recommended. Glo offers you mouth-watering data plan at affordable prices. You get about 10Gig for 2,500 Naira. This is the best you can get in Nigeria. You can get 3.2Gig for 100 Naira.
Regarding network coverage, it’s still competitive. Other service providers in Nigeria offer data plan at affordable rates, but none can be compared to Glo regarding price.
Streaming Online Videos: Watching or streaming videos and music online takes a lot of mobile bandwidth, and it is not advisable to use your data for surfing the internet to watch or stream videos.
Instead of streaming that video, it’s far much better to download the video. However, the hack for downloading videos could also work for streaming videos.
Downloading Videos: One mistake you should avoid is using your data subscription plan to start downloading videos. Lots of service providers have done justice to this. People who have the information usually wait till 12.00 am before they can start downloading those videos.
The likes of MTN, Glo, Airtel, and Etisalat offer you the opportunity to surf the internet from 12.00am to 4/5am at a ridiculous price.
For Airtel subscribers, you just need to subscribe to the Trybe plan and only pay 25 Naira for 500Mb. The same thing applies to MTN; you are charged 25 Naira. You also get 500MB; all you need to do is to text Night to 131 (You have to be on Pulse plan)
Etisalat and Glo offer you 1Gig for 200 Naira; you have to use it up between 12.00 am and 5.00 am.
Meanwhile, ntel, one of the new players in the Nigerian telecom industry offers you two days of unlimited internet plan for N1, 500. There is no data limit for those two days.
The key takeaway in all of these is that the data bundle for your internet surfing should be different from the data plan for downloading.
When watching High-Resolution videos, subscribe to those Night Plans, the same thing applies to updating your phone software and applications.
Conclusion
It’s also important to start making use of office wifi when you are at work. Take advantage of your mobile data utilities by your network provider, set a limit and track the amount of data you consume.
The whole idea is to limit the amount of money you spend on data per month.
