It hasn’t taken Internet service providers very long to conclude that their all-you-can-eat pricing isn’t as profitable as charging those who use more bandwidth streaming videos and music more money than those who pop on for a quick Facebook chat. Many are adopting flat-rate pricing or pricing tiers. The more you use, the more you pay. Many are even imposing limits on their customers.
Comcast, for instance, limits its customers to 250 gigabytes a month, a threshold that it estimates affects no more than a few percent of its customers. The limits are much lower for wireless data providers like the cellphone companies. Verizon, for instance, offers plans with limits of 2, 5 or 10 gigabytes a month.
Complain all you want about the new plans, but there are only two ways around the problem: Use less or pay more.
Much of the advice on how to use less bandwidth will sound a lot like what you’d hear from any dietician who catches you at the smorgasbord: eat less or at least eat the healthy foods. It’s not an emotionally satisfying answer, but when it comes to broadband, it is either that or pay more.
Like any diet plan, there are a few tips for making that easier.
n Watch the meter. All of the ISPs with the new limits provide mechanisms for tracking your consumption on their website. Comcast, for instance, has a data usage meter in the customer service section of its website. If you end up near the limit, you can throttle back a little more – or get a second job.
n Install bandwidth meter software on your computer. This will only measure how much you consume from that computer, not every computer sharing your connection, but that can still be useful.
The new caps are inspiring a wide range of new packages that count how much information goes in and out of your machine and there are a number of excellent programs. Two that are well-regarded are DU Meter for the PC and iStat Menus for the Mac.
n Cut back on video. Video files are by far the largest blocks of data delivered to the average person. One hour of a high-definition movie might be as much as 2.3 gigabytes. The text for this article is probably about 7,200 bytes plus some overhead for advertisements. That’s about one-300,000th of the movie’s size.
n Decrease the resolution. Netflix lets users choose among ‘good’, ‘better’ and ‘best’ quality; the merely ‘good’ quality may be one-seventh the size of the best quality. Smart algorithms reduce detail by replacing complicated patches with one average colour. YouTube and Hulu also let users choose the resolution for some videos.
n Take control of ambush video. Some websites include video ads that start playing immediately. A number of extensions for Web browsers can temporarily block Flash content, a common form used to embed videos in Web pages. ClickToFlash for Safari, for instance, replaces the content with a button that you can push if you want to watch it. Firefox users can get Flashblock, which does the same thing.
n Avoid constant home surveillance. Some home video security systems stream a constant image of your house in case you want to check for damage. Others upload new images only when something moves. Being careful with the amount of surveillance can save a large amount of data.
n Restrict your online backups. If you use an automatic backup service that uploads your data to a remote server, think twice about which files and folders you back up.
Text documents for work will generally be small and put little load on the system, but if you’re filming every moment of a new baby’s life and saving it to disk, the backups will be large. Saving multiple versions of a PowerPoint presentation filled with video can also raise consumption because the backup program will dutifully ship copies of all of them across the Internet.
n Think twice about cloud music services. If you listen frequently to streaming music services, consider buying the music you listen to frequently and storing it locally.
n Share photos in moderation. Your friends may like seeing as many megapixels of your children as possible but full-size images from digital cameras can be quite large. Many image-sorting tools like iPhoto can produce lower-resolution images perfect for emailing. This compression helps both you and the recipient stay under your limit.
n Update your operating system with care. Many operating systems offer automated updates, a nice feature that mixes essential security fixes with less important bug fixes and cosmetic changes. If you turn off the automation, you can decide to download only the updates that are important. Most software companies include a short description of the changes and the size. Often the title of important fixes will begin with words like ‘Security Update’.
n Avoid email attachments. Some people think nothing of sending their friends a large video file showing a cat doing something endearing.
Others send big work files to large mailing lists even if only a few need the documents. Some of this can be avoided by not downloading attachments. Web-based email services usually won’t deliver the attachments unless you request them. Good email readers like Outlook can be configured to download only email attachments smaller than a certain size.
n Turn off email images. Most image files are too small to make a difference unless the bandwidth cap is very low, but if you get many marketing messages, the image files can add up. Many Web-based email packages allow you to control image loading.
n Browse email subject lines. Many smartphone email clients download only the subjects and senders’ names, not the actual content. Many Web-based services, like Gmail, download the content only when you open the message.
n Run antivirus software. Malware can take over your computer and use your bandwidth. Keep your computer clean.
n Explore non-digital activities. There are many old-fashioned ways to spend an evening without consuming bandwidth. Consider board games, reading things printed on paper, walks in the park or quiet dinners without settling arguments by checking Wikipedia.
Source www.timesofoman.com/
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