Data usage

[JK8]

Hello

I got a question, if you browsing a site on your mobile phone and the data usage is 2MB, will the data usage be higher/lower/same on a Pc with a higher res screen and bigger screen size?

 

[jetpacman]

If the site you are going to can detect that you are coming from a mobile device and serves you a mobile tailored site, then the bandwidth usage should be lower. Since mobile developers optimize for mobile devices and their limitations. Examples of this are Google and Facebook which have mobile versions. Google detects your user agent and FB requires that you go to m.facebook.com

However if the site you go to doesnt support mobile browsers by having a separate mobile site, then you will be downloading the same site and content as what you would on your desktop. Some phones have memory limitations so they cant even display the whole site and I presume they might saturate their memory when attempting to get a site. There mite be some things that arent rendered at all, but it should be more or less the same then as from a desktop.

If you use your phone as a GPRS modem or even a 3G modem, and browse from your PC, then it will be exactly the same amount of data passing through your phone as would through a ADSL connection for example.

At R2 per Meg it can add up a bit, so I suggest looking for sites that have the "m" subdomain or are in the .mobi domain. These are becoming more and more standard.

 

[JK8]

If the site you are going to can detect that you are coming from a mobile device and serves you a mobile tailored site, then the bandwidth usage should be lower. Since mobile developers optimize for mobile devices and their limitations. Examples of this are Google and Facebook which have mobile versions. Google detects your user agent and FB requires that you go to m.facebook.com

However if the site you go to doesnt support mobile browsers by having a separate mobile site, then you will be downloading the same site and content as what you would on your desktop. Some phones have memory limitations so they cant even display the whole site and I presume they might saturate their memory when attempting to get a site. There mite be some things that arent rendered at all, but it should be more or less the same then as from a desktop.

If you use your phone as a GPRS modem or even a 3G modem, and browse from your PC, then it will be exactly the same amount of data passing through your phone as would through a ADSL connection for example.

At R2 per Meg it can add up a bit, so I suggest looking for sites that have the "m" subdomain or are in the .mobi domain. These are becoming more and more standard.

Cool thanks alot! So a browsing with a 3G phone connection, Data card and ADSL all uses the same amount of data when visiting a particular site?

 

[Perdition]

Cool thanks alot! So a browsing with a 3G phone connection, Data card and ADSL all uses the same amount of data when visiting a particular site?

Yep

 

[crysis]

Hello

I got a question, if you browsing a site on your mobile phone and the data usage is 2MB, will the data usage be higher/lower/same on a Pc with a higher res screen and bigger screen size?

Nope. The images it downloads are way smaller, and therefore use much less bandwidth. Also, on some browsers (mobile) you can change the quality of the images to use even less bandwidth.

 

[Perdition]

Nope. The images it downloads are way smaller, and therefore use much less bandwidth. Also, on some browsers (mobile) you can change the quality of the images to use even less bandwidth.

What you describe only works with browsers like Opera where their servers fetch the site you request, shrink the images and send the modified version to your phone. I think Google has a similar service. Unless you're using one of these services the amount of data used is exactly the same as a PC.

 

[onlyme]

Nope. The images it downloads are way smaller, and therefore use much less bandwidth. Also, on some browsers (mobile) you can change the quality of the images to use even less bandwidth.

The images may be displayed as smaller, but they are not smaller in size, so yes you will use the same amount of bandwidth, many phones can optimize a website to display better on the small screen including shrinking the images for display, but that does not mean that it downloads a smaller image. the same applies to quality, to render the image in lower quality, the phone still needs the image data, to get the image data the phone needs to download it, 99% of websites do not have a mobile version or low quality alternative images available.

 

[crysis]

What you describe only works with browsers like Opera where their servers fetch the site you request, shrink the images and send the modified version to your phone. I think Google has a similar service. Unless you're using one of these services the amount of data used is exactly the same as a PC.

Yes that must be the case then.