Safaricom has a promotion dubbed Asante Data Sunday which is geared to refund their subscribers the mobile data they used this coming Friday and Saturday on Sunday.This promotion is open to all Safaricom subscribers and if you want to participate, you may be wondering how you’d use as much data as possible for it to be refunded back on Sunday.
Thankfully, there are a number of ways you could use your data caps to the max.
Streaming Services
Streaming is a data guzzling activity and in this day and age, this has become the norm. There are so many types of streaming services that we use today, ranging from music streaming services to TV streaming services, podcasts, online video repositories and more.
During the next two days, you can decide to stream your favourite songs on Apple Music/Spotify/Deezer/Tidal/Songa instead of relying on your stored library. Or alternatively, you can either stream or download episodes of your favourite movies and shows from Netflix, Amazon Prime or Showmax which you can watch on the go. Or if you’ve been bitten by the podcasting bug, you can stream or download your favourite podcasts from iTunes, Stitcher, PocketCasts or any other podcasting platform of choice.
Another great way to gobble up data is by visiting online video repositories like YouTube or Vimeo. You can decide to stream content from your favourite channels in higher resolutions or even store them to watch later.
Instagram can be a data hog since the app refreshes photos and videos people share on the platform constantly. There are two sections where your data can be used effectively: Instagram Stories and IGTV.
Instagram Stories feature a mixture of photos and videos and people usually post several of these in one Story, so going through the whole carousel of Stories can drain your data pretty quickly.
Instagram also launched IGTV this year complete with its own app and this is even a better way to drain your data bundles as you watch content from your favourite creators.
Snapchat
Another social networking app that manages to gobble up a lot of data is Snapchat. This is thanks to a few features it offers like its famous Snapchat Lenses which are refreshed regularly as well as the Stories feature that feature a mix of photos and video. There is also the Discover feature that offers news in text and video form.
Disabling data saver
Most social networking apps come with a data saver feature that makes sure you use less data than it is required. This involves not autoplaying videos, loading lower quality images and disabling autosync.
When you disable this option, you will load higher quality video and photos as well as video automatically loading on your timeline.
Tethering
Tethering is a neat way to use your data bundles by another device other than the one providing the Wi-Fi Hotspot. Devices like your other phone or your laptop can be tethered to this personal Wi-Fi Hotspot and will use it to connect it to the Internet.
When you surf the web using your laptop via the tethered network, you will notice a significant rise in data usage compared to you using your phone to do the same task. Generally desktop webpages use more data and this is mostly the case.
Installing updates
Installing updates is usually a data intensive process and it mostly requires a Wi-Fi connection. However, if you have enough data, it can be done and this could be your chance.
You usually get notifications of pending updates from app stores and they can be plenty if you’ve not been updating your apps.
Other forms of updates that you might get include operating system updates on either iOS, Android or even Windows and this can be huge.
