Fibre data caps arrive, and they’re causing a slew of problems, and with good reason.
When looking at the plans, particularly for Home Fibre, you’ll notice that users, particularly those on Bronze, have little choice but to reduce their consumption if they want to keep their 8 Mbps speeds (goes down to 1 Mbps if the cap is passed at 0.5TB).
To manage or reduce your fiber usage, you’ll need to first figure out how much data you use every month (*400*0# for Home Fibre) and how much data your devices consume. If you’re aware of all of this, you can change how you access content online to avoid exceeding your imposed limits before the 30 days before your renewal expires.
In a month, how much data do I use?
Dial *400# from your phone app and select 0 for My Usage.
The next toast notice will tell you how much data you used on average over the last month.
The data displays how much data you use on a total basis (calculated as average from previous months). Multiple devices, such as phones, PCs, and TVs or streaming boxes, have access to your account. Others play online, thus their consoles eat them a significant portion of their budget.
Home Fibre, unfortunately, does not display day-to-day usage. We’d also like to be able to monitor how much data has been used, say in the middle of the month so that we can take necessary action.
How much data do my devices consume?
Unfortunately, the Safaricom Home Fibre router’s dashboard does not reveal this information.
Other routers have a lot of this data and a more user-friendly UI. I’m not sure if Safaricom permits users to bring their routers or if they can be updated with aftermarket firmware that displays more information about their usage.
On the plus side, most individuals would be aware of whatever equipment in their home uses a lot of data. Most of the time, it’s the TV that’s on, streaming stuff from YouTube, Netflix, and Showmax.
Our phones, as well as computers, belong to the second category (for groups that stare at laptop screens all day long, either for work or entertainment or both).
Computer
It’s simple to figure out how much data your computer uses.
Go to Settings > Network and Internet > Data Usage on Windows 10.
The data connection tab displays the total amount of data consumed by your PC over a month – per program. You can always establish a data limit if the numbers aren’t good.
Setting your connection as metered is another option because it disables automatic upgrades and backups.
Phone
Go to Settings > Connections/network > data use on Android. There are mobile and Wi-Fi choices available. Wi-Fi is the way to go. You may see a significant increase that can be broken down by app. You can alter your consumption patterns based on what you see in the chart, which also reveals the period during which the data was utilized. For iPhone users, an identical approach should be followed.
Some suggestions can help: keep an eye out for data-hungry social networking apps like Facebook’s family of apps, make sure your streaming apps are policed in a way that uses less data, and disable app stores from automatically updating programs. All background data services can also be turned off.
Consoles
Users can see their bandwidth usage over a month by going to Settings > Network Settings > Bandwidth Usage. The PS systems from Sony do not offer a straightforward mechanism to monitor consumption.
Consoles consume a significant amount of data, particularly when a user is downloading a game. In addition, the more games you have, the more data your devices will need, especially while updating them.
Streaming boxes, TVs
Some streaming boxes do not have a data usage setting, whereas others do. Their services, including streaming applications, do, however, contain options that can help you save data.
Netflix, for example, can use up to 3 GB of data per hour when streaming in FHD, or 7 GB if streaming in UHD. On Prime Video, it’s even higher (Netflix adjusts consumption based on your network quality). The highest quality level on Prime Video is ‘Best,’ which consumes up to 6.8 GB of data per hour.
A similar configuration may be found on Showmax. 100 MB, 300 MB, and 700 MB per hour are used in the Minimum, Low, and Medium settings, respectively. The maximum isn’t given, although it’s likely to be higher. Showmax’s content, on the other hand, is limited to 720p, which is a bonus.
You can also reduce the amount of data YouTube consumes by lowering the streaming resolution (the official YouTube app for Android TV does not have a way to do this, so you have to adjust resolution per video)
Also, try to turn off your television while you are not watching it.
Excessive data usage can be avoided by playing physical games (disks) and never patching older games.
