Why do my
smartphone spends my money?
You have
just purchase a new smartphone, turn it on, do a little typing on it, look for
the current time and temperature (although you can easy exit to the balcony and
see what kind of weather it is :-) and just when you thought to call your best
friend / girlfriend, smartphone tells you that you have no money on your account.
Or another
scenario: you bought a new smartphone, do a little typing on it, you did not
"go to the internet", you left it on the side and a few hours later
when you want to make a call or send a message, money has "mysteriously"
disappeared from the account (assuming that you do not have a subscription).
First of
all, I have to say that this article is written with non-technical language in
order to be as simple as possible for people who are not technically qualified
and have little experience with technical expressions.
What
happened? The key term is "DATA TRAFFIC" or "CELLULAR DATA"
(depending on the manufacturer of smartphone and the software version, this
term can be called differently). The first thing you must know is that the operator
which device you bought aim to earn as much as he can from you. They don't want
for you to be happy and laughing all the time as suggested by their numerous
stereotypical adverts, their goal is to get as many of your money as they can.
One of the "little things" that helps them is automatically switched
ON data traffic in the new smartphone.
Basically,
all smartphones devices have a "desire" to be connected to the
Internet all the time, whether they want to upgrade themselves to the latest
version of software, either to contact the manufacturer or doing lots of other
little things.
Most of the
programs that are installed on the device also want to go "...little bit
to the Internet", one wish to upgrade itself, the other wants to connect
somewhere, third wants to retrieve the latest data from the net...
It should
be noted that most of these programs do not notify user when they will connect
to the net, they run invisibly in the background. A classic example is widgets
for weather on the screen for real-time display of temperature, humidity, wind
and so on. This program does not miracly finds it's data, but it connect to the
net, to his server from which retrieves data. There's masses of similar
programs that operate on a similar principle. If you play some games they can also
be invisibly in the background connected to the Internet. From applications
that have visible connection to the Internet, we can mention for example,
YouTube or web browser.
And that's
okay, because if you have a smartphone only for calls and SMS, instead of that
you can use old Siemens C35 or something like that.
For all of
that you need to have a card with included (paid) data traffic. Some standard
should be 1GB or more of monthly data traffic. Once you have purchased data
traffic and turn ON data traffic in smartphone settings, then your smartphone
will connect to the Internet through it and MB (megabytes) of data transferred
is much cheaper than through GSM signal.
Now we are
back to the beginning with the question of why my phone spends my money without
my notice?
First you
should know did you have included some kind of data traffic in your mobile
package. If you do not have any data traffic, then your smartphone will connect
to the Internet via a GSM signal which is much more expensive than via data
traffic. In this case, I recommend that your first thing to do with the phone
after you unpack it, is to turn off the connection to the Internet (turn off
data traffic) until you buy some of the data plans offered by your operator
whose SIM card you have.
If you have
a data plan, but your smartphone "too soon" spend money, then you
need to think about what you are doing with smartphone, perhaps you little too
much "hang" on it. Also make sure what applications you have installed
on it, and what each application does. I have already mentioned various weather
programs, they will be lot of time connected to the Internet, so let's say you
have something that is constantly receiving the latest news, ads, betting news
and a bunch of other programs, each of them takes its share of the pie.
If you are
at home and you have a "classic" ADSL over the wire, I certainly
recommend that you turn ON the wireless network in router and connect
smartphone to it and then connect to the Internet using a wireless network.
Mobile phone is first connected to a wireless network and over it goes to the
Internet, and if there is no wireless network then you will be connected via a
signal from a smartphone. Of course, this is only possible within the house
with full extent of the signal from the router.
I recommend
a good program that can track the amount of MB that you are using:
RADIOOPT
http://www.radioopt.com/
The
program, besides the control of traffic, has the option of turn OFF data
traffic when you cross a certain level of data traffic which you defined, depending
on the amount of paid traffic in the data rate.
For
example, if you have 1GB of traffic, set off at 950MB.
How to turn
off/on data traffic (in simple terms, the ability to connect mobile phones to
the Internet)?
This is not
easy to say because it depends on the phone model as well as the version of the
software in it.
For iPhone
IOS v 6.x: Settings - General - Mobile Data - ON ili OFF.
Good iPhone
manuals:
Samsung S3
calls that "Use packet data". Start Applications - Settings - More -
Mobile Networks - Use packed data.
Easy way is
to use Google: "how to disable cellular data on *your smartphone model*".
For prices
and options for data traffic look at web site of your GSM provider.
Do you find
this text useful?
Disclamer: This text
is only informative and everyone has to know what he is doing and adjusting, if you
do not know what you are doing, then you better call someone who has more
experience with such things. I do not take any responsibility for any problems
or costs incurred!!
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