Data

Dec 01 2024

Want to Know Where Users are using their 100 GB of Data? Here’s How to see Data Usage on Samsung Androids

Samsung Smartphones: View how much data you’re using

Users are often saying how they don’t know how they have used so much data on a corporate device. Here’s how to see a user’s data usage on an Android device. Then, interventions as necessary depending on the usage.

Swipe down from the home screen and open the app drawer
Open the Settings app.

3. Tap Connections.

4. Select Data usage.

Tap Mobile data usage.

A data usage graph displays the relevant details, such as the billing cycle, data usage limit, data usage warning limit, and consumption by installed apps on the phone.

Have fun with this one and we are ……Still Protecting your wireless RIghts………

Mar 16 2018

March Madness: Heads up for 5 Quick Ways to Curb Data Madness!

According to Fortune Magazine, we know that the average worker will spend Six Work Hours (yes, 6!) Watching March Madness

We all love to cheer on our favorite college basketball teams in March. Check out the facts below to see the stats on March Madness corporate data usage.

Fun Facts on Corporate Device Usage During March Madness: According to AppDeveloper Magazine:

Compared to the month prior, that the number of employee devices connecting to the websites increased 211%, while the number of devices utilizing the apps increased 126% for the sports apps of NCAA March Madness Live, ESPN, CBS Sports and Yahoo Sports. Lost productivity? perhaps………
IMPORTANT NOTE: All this increased activity was on corporate devices
Teachable moment? Watch for potential overages and monitor high data usage, especially this month

Indeed, one of our Clients mentioned that every year their network was brought to its knees during March Madness due to all the employee streaming.

Here’s a few thoughts on how to manage the expense:

Set up billing alerts for high data usage in your carrier portal. Check out our blog to provide you with some details here
Let users know to connect to Wifi Networks whenever possible, especially if streaming
Let users know you will be monitoring their bills and checking data usage. While this doesn’t mean you need to be accused of police brutality, it does mean users should be aware of their usage and what it could be costing the company.
Send Text Alerts to users to alert users of high usage and what they can do instead of using their wireless data network. See additional information on that here
Educate the users: let them know if they are streaming 2 hours of a game that is approximately 1 to 1.5 GBs of usage. If their single data plan is 2GB for the entire month, they will need to reduce usage for the rest of the month in order not to exceed their own allowance. Data usage guidelines can be found here

Also, if you have questions about saving your company money through the auditing, optimizing, or managing of wireless services, please click here to contact The Bill Police.

Still Protecting Your Wireless Rights…..especially for all those college athletes this week…….

Jan 26 2018

Best Tips to Limit Data Usage for iPhone and Android

We have talked to so many businesses lately that want to find new ways to manage Data Usage on their devices.

We get it: you are so over your users racking up charges and losing productivity while using scads of data each month.

We’ll here are some quick tips to Manage that Data Usage:

For All Devices:

The Obvious Choice: Use Wifi whenever possible. Bill Police evens send alerts to High Data Users reminding them. You might want to send something like this too:

For iPhone:

Some apps from the App Store use the Apple Push Notifications to alert you of new data. Apps that use push notifications (such as instant messaging or social media apps) will use cellular data. To turn off push notifications, go to Settings > Notifications.

To view the cellular data usage for your apps, tap Settings > Cellular. You can turn cellular data on or off for each app. This change will really help you not be manhandled by your data usage and YOU decide what gets priority in what situation.

Disable background app refresh

Turning off background app refresh by going to:

Settings > General > and turn off refresh or selecting individual apps to turn off. This will help reduce data usage and give some icing on the phone cake to also save your battery life!

For Android:

Determine Background Data

Some apps that use data even when your device is not in use. All apps don’t need to be using data all the time:

Go to Settings >> Data Usage >> Mobile Data Usage and you can see the statistics for which app is consuming how much of data and adjust as necessary.

Update Apps Over Wi-Fi only

Disabling Automatic Updates in the play store allows you to choose updates occurring only when on a Wifi network.

Go to Play Store and tap on Menu>>Settings>>Auto-update apps. Make sure that you select “Auto-update apps over Wi-Fi only.” This will help to reduce usage by only having updates occur while you are NOT connected to cellular data and sucking up usage.

These small easy adjustments can save your company hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars! If you have questions about saving your company money through the auditing, optimizing, or managing of your wireless services, please click here to contact The Bill Police.

And we are……Still Protecting Your Wireless Rights; especially for Ashley today …..:)

Apr 28 2017

How Much Data are Your Users Using? Heres a Few Quick Tips

What are your users doing when they are eating up gobs of data?

We are here to tell you that data consumption — for different types of files — is not created equal. Below is a helpful table, thanks Verizon, to help show you what you get from your data usage:

So what is that user who is saying they are using their 35 GB for “business use” must mean they are sending about 3 and a half million emails each month — or looking at about 100,000 web views.

Perhaps not a big deal if you dont worry about cost or productivity but the user who is using this 35 GB per month with an overage rate of $10 or $15 per GB, these users can be costing you about $500 a month on average.

To help you gauge what you’re using in a day, here are some additional averages:

100 kb = text only email

500 kb = visiting one webpage

61,440 kb = listening to 60 minutes of music

358,400 kb = watching 60 minutes of video

3,072 kb = downloading/uploading one hi-resolution photo

5,120 kb = using navigation for 60 minutes

For texting, messages are measured as events rather than in kb and are charged per address (recipient) sent or received.

One message sent to one person = one event

One message sent to 10 persons = 10 events

The text messages show up as a tally on the wireless bill as the number sent and received. Wireless plans vary, with some putting a ceiling on the number of texts per month to unlimited options.

By understanding how much data and messaging you use in an average month, it positions you well for selecting the right plan to meet your needs to help you save time and money.

If you have questions about saving your company money through the auditing, optimizing, or managing of your wireless services, please click here to contact The Bill Police.

Still Protecting Your Wireless Rights…

Feb 04 2017

I am from ATT and I’m Here to Help…cough (with Stream Saver)

ATT Stream Saver — a network feature that allows Corporately billed subscribers to watch videos but use less data — was launched on January 11th.

Sounds fantastic but how is this possible? Marketed as a data/cost saving feature, the short answer is: throttling. Throttling by any other name is still…..throttling.

Using ATT’s own words, “With Stream Saver turned on, data speeds for content that is recognized as video is reduced to a max of 1.5 Mbps, which generally allows standard definition quality, similar to DVD (about 480p).* This is the case for all applicable plans including those with unlimited data.

Here is a link to ATT’s direct information on the feature:

And, because ATT is so customer service focused, they are doing this for you — you don’t even need to lift a finger. ATT states, “We will begin rolling out Stream Saver to new and existing Mobile Share Advantage℠ and Mobile Share Advantage℠ for Business plans beginning January 11, 2017. We plan to add the feature to other select postpaid rate plans that include data by the end of the first half of 2017. Stream Saver will be automatically added and turned on for free for your CRU lines on applicable plans as the feature is rolled out. No additional action is required.”

But beware, this data will still count toward monthly usage. So while this qualifies as throttling, it isn’t “zero-rating,” — like from Sprint and TMobile — which eliminates that streaming data from counting as data usage at all.

If you need to turn off this throttling, however, you yourself (or BP if you are fortunate to be a BP Client) will need to turn this feature off for users at your discretion.

And for our Government account friends, please note that AT&T will not automatically add Stream Saver to government accounts. Stream Saver can be added to Government accounts through Premier.

So, if your data seems to be degrading in quality, take a look at your plan to manage your Stream Saver Feature OR

Have BP do it for you and all your Corporate Devices. Because, we are ….

…..still protecting your wireless rights!