How to Take Charge of Your Mobile Device Usage and Avoid Bill Shock

Many subscribers experience a negative reaction when their phone bills are charged beyond their expectations, most commonly as a result of gross overuse of data applications without appropriate data plan and using mobile phones while traveling without understanding the data roaming charges. Learning how to avoid mobile bill shock is important for a subscriber who is keen on their budgeting to avoid paying charges that could have been avoided. This can be done by having an automatic alert that enables you to know when you are running up a surprisingly high data bill. Some of the effective ways for managing data usage include the following.

1.       It is important to understand your calling pattern and data usage pattern. For this, you can consult your carrier for a plan that would be best for your usage. It will help in managing your bill and also usage of the service without experiencing any uncertainties.

2.       Roaming charges can be costly. Hence, it is good to understand the charges before using it. The charges for data usage when on roaming are usually higher than voice call. Alternatively, plenty of applications for VoIP calls are available that you can download on your Smartphone and use to make calls. Make sure this is done on a WiFi network and not using your mobile phone data on roaming. Understanding how the plan works avoids unexpected expenses.

3.       Prepay plan, as opposed to post pay plan, can also be an important tool to avoid mobile bill shock. With pre-pay plan, you are able to be control expense since you cannot use unless you have paid for the service. Data usage in that case is regulated by the amount you have paid for and you cannot spend more than what you have purchased.

4.       Understand how the applications installed on your phone work. A lot of them work in the background and eat up your data allowance. Knowing how these activities take place would reduce the chance of incurring cost that is not beneficial. Some applications may come with add-ons, especially the free ones, and these add-ons run by using data.

Apart from the above measures, data managing applications available on the Internet can also be used. One of the best data managing applications is my data manager, which is known worldwide. The application monitors the usage of your mobile data and helps you prevent outstretching and overuse of data allowance on your mobile. It keeps track of mobile data usage by monitoring data that you use, keeps a daily count of data usage, helps understand which applications are using the most data and sums all the data used in the mobile phone among others. You are able to see which applications are using the most amount of allowance and restrict them from use unless in a Wi-Fi zone. It helps you take charge of how you must use your device to keep data usage under check.

Posted in: mobile data usage