Managing your Satellite Internet Bandwidth
Satellite internet is a great resource, but if your plan has a data allowance, you may have found yourself hitting a cap. This can be a frustrating experience, but there are some simple things you can do to make sure you don’t exceed your limit. Here are some top tips for effectively managing your satellite internet usage.
Set a date for monitoring your usage so far
Having a good routine for measuring your own internet use is the best step towards keeping under the cap. Use our customer information portal to check on how you’re doing at least twice a month. Alternatively, you can also install a separate data usage meter, or bandwidth meter, from a third party. You can find many free examples on the web.
This is especially useful if your household or business is made up of multiple internet users – families with teens, or employees working online together, can quickly rack up a vast amount of downloads without realising. Having a set date marked on the calendar will make it easier to monitor your overall usage, and in turn stay within your usage limit.
Think about the way you view videos
Videos are a major culprit when it comes to overstepping your data limit. But there are simple and effective ways to reduce the amount of data used, while still getting to watch your favourite vids, such as lowering the video resolution of the content in question. After all, if you’re just using YouTube to listen to some background music, you don’t need to be watching in HD. Small changes like this can make a big difference over the course of a month.
YouTube videos in high quality consume large amounts of data.
In addition, it can be a good idea to examine whether there are ways to reduce the amount of videos you download, and you should also be aware of sites that automatically load videos – get an ad blocker to reduce these data demands. Sites such as facebook will also allow you to choose how they load content.
One such example is facebook video autoplay:
In facebook settings – Videos you will find an autoplay video setting.
Changing this setting to Off will prevent videos from playing automatically.
Using these simple methods will help you reduce the amount of bandwidth used dramatically.
Examine background processes that make use of the internet
Cloud computing can be a handy way of backing up files, but the demand these services place on your satellite internet usage can add up quickly over time. If you use cloud based file storage, look into ways of scheduling appointed backup times to off peak or unmonitored hours, so that it’s not constantly demanding part of your bandwidth.
You should also regularly check for spyware and malware, as these also might be consuming your bandwidth – aside from the obvious risk they pose to the security of your computer.
Cloud services continually upload data which contributes heavily to your usage.
Manage the setup for your email account
Though we rarely make use of them, there are lots of options within your email account which can minimise data usage. Default options which are costly in terms of data transfer, such as downloading all attachments automatically, can be changed without compromising your email experience.
Image files in particular can consume a large amount of data, so keeping on top of them in your inbox is a must. Also, consider the files you send over email. Default settings on Image files will often be on high-resolution, which means big-data packages. This is unnecessary if you’re just exchanging some snaps with friends or family, as they don’t need to be edited in detail later on. Simply lower the settings of the file to under 1MB, and save yourself the usage.
While sticking to these tips requires a little effort, it’s preferable to unnecessarily hitting your internet data limit.
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