If there’s anything you need more aside from food, then it’s probably data.

Civilization has gotten more digital than ever, tech has rapidly evolved – so as apps. And regardless of what uses these apps provide, most of them need our mobile data to run efficiently.

Mobile networks are aware of these, and the cost data is obviously getting less expensive than it was. Thankfully, no matter what part of the world you’re in, there’s always a data plan for everyone.

But still, there is still a way to get the most out of your data plan without unnecessary usage that you might not even be aware of.

Now forget what similar articles you might have seen before, if you follow these two simple tips, you’ll definitely notice change in your data exhaustion rate.

1 • Turn off Apps Background Data

As simple as this may seem, a lot of individuals don’t even know this. Turning off background data for some certain apps can save you a lot of money not just data only.

Reason is, some apps use your data even if you don’t have them open. It all happens in the background.

Here’s how to turn off apps background data.

First, go to Settings, then to Apps

Click whichever app you don’t need background data

Below the app details, click data usage

Click on the toggle beside the background data

And Voila!

You can do these for as many apps you wish not to use your data unnecessarily in the background.

2 • Install Datally

Datally is another app from Google with the initiative of conserving more data for its Android users. The app is lightweight, its latest version is just little above 5MB.

Adding to this, it comes with a bunch of useful features like data saver that allows you to block data background usage or unwanted notifications from apps with ease, and also a detailed statistics of your data usage.

My favorite feature is the Bubble that gives real-time data usage of the app you’re using at that moment

One tip though (more like an advice), if you’re at any point managing data stay far from YouTube. But if you still have the itch to watch youtube video, go for the lite version of the app, YouTube Go. Because I heard some people only get their senses back with the “your data is remaining 100MB” message. 🙄

Okay that will be all for now. If you have any questions, I will be more than happy to assist.

Thanks for reading, hopefully I’ll see you in the next post.

Normally when it comes to cheap data plans I always tell people that Nigeria is one of the countries with the cheapest data plans in the world and I haven’t been too far from the truth. Take a look at at this graph from Statista.

Countries With The Cheapest Data

Nigeria ranks 4th in the list of selected countries with the cheapest data plans.

While a gigabyte of data would set Italian smartphone users back $1.73, the same amount would cost $2.22 in Nigeria, $2.99 in France, $6.66 in the United Kingdom and $6.96 in Germany. Costs are even higher in North America where they average $12.02 in Canada and $12.38 in the United States.

So should we give our Network Providers some accolades for giving us the cheapest data plans in the world?

Nope. Definitely not worth a standing ovation especially if you check the fact that we have one of the slowest 4G speeds in the world.

Nigeria’s top 4G speed is placed between 9.5Mbps and 16.2Mbps, while Algeria’s slowest speed of 2.6Mbps is the worst in the world.

However here’s the plot twist, the country with the slowest 4G speed – Algeria’s top download speed of 16.4Mbps still beat the fastest speeds in Thailand (11.7Mbps), India (14.6Mbps) and Nigeria (16.2Mbps).

Now I feel they only deserve the accolades for constantly zapping our data. Nevertheless I feel ISP’s in Nigeria can definitely do better than this.

Cable.co.uk also revealed a more comprehensive list.