Many people need to stretch their data allowance further and further each month to stay connected.

How to reduce mobile data usage?

Here's a quick how-to to make your smartphone work smarter not harder, and help you make that data allowance go further so you have enough to watch that essential cat video!

1. Connect to Wi-Fi when you can

Firstly, to ensure Wi-Fi is turned on, go to: Settings - Wi-Fi.

Free Wi-Fi is readily available in many bars, restaurants, and shopping malls when you are out and about. Be smart and take advantage of this to save huge amounts of data.

Most places freely advertise their Wi-Fi password on menus or blackboards, but if they don't, just ask. If you have connected to their Wi-Fi before, then your phone will remember it and connect automatically when you are in range.

There're also some great apps to help you find where free Wi-Fi is located near you, e.g. "Free Wi-Fi Map" and "Free Wi-Fi Finder".

Potential Savings: 250MB/month

This saving assumes you use your local coffee shop's Wi-Fi 3 times a week for 20 minutes of social media browsing each time rather than using your mobile data.

2. Turn off mobile data on unnecessary applications & update them through Wi-Fi

A lot of apps use mobile data but chances are you only need mobile data running on a select few apps all the time, such as messaging apps and social media apps.

A good rule of thumb is that any app where you don't need to receive notifications probably doesn't need mobile data all the time.

Updating applications can also be a huge data guzzler as most apps are tens or hundreds of MB in size. If you have multiple apps that download automatically over your mobile data it can eat away at your data very quickly.

Here's how to limit the mobile data to the select apps you need to use when you're not connected to Wi-Fi:

Settings - Cellular - Cellular Data - Scroll through apps - Toggle mobile data off on unnecessary applications.

Here's How-to restrict apps to update through Wi-Fi only:

Settings - iTunes & App Stores - Use cellular data - Off

Potential Savings: 375MB/month

375MB/Month savings assumes fifteen 25MB application updates run over Wi-Fi rather than over your mobile data connection.

3. Turn off Wi-Fi Assist

Apple's "Wi-Fi assist" will automatically use mobile data when Wi-Fi connectivity is poor to keep you connected.

While this is a nice feature intended to improve your browsing experience, it can be hard to tell if your phone is using mobile data or Wi-Fi with this feature turned on.

To be safe, start with Wi-Fi assist off:

Settings - Cellular - Scroll to bottom - Wi-Fi Assist - Off

If your applications are not working properly then switch Wi-Fi assist to on. Beside the on and off toggle switch you can see exactly how much data Wi-Fi assist has consumed while on.

Potential Savings: 100MB/month

100MB saving will depend on your access to reliable Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi assist data consumption will increase if you frequently move onto poor quality Wi-Fi networks.

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