Many consumers are complaining that their airtime and mobile data is disappearing, and that data was being deducted from their mobile accounts even though they had not used the Internet.<\/p>\n
One of these consumers is Radio 702\u2019s Eusebius McKaiser, who has been complaining about disappearing data recently.<\/p>\n
McKaiser argued that there may be more to the issue than users simply being unaware of how much data they use.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s something suspiciously wrong with Vodacom data the last few weeks. My data keeps vanishing quicker than Bell Pottinger’s reputation,\u201d said McKaiser.<\/p>\n
\u201cVodacom – are you stealing our money beyond your already exorbitant data rates? Everyone is complaining about data vanishing in a puff of magic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Vodacom responded, saying the reality is that data is not disappearing \u2013 we are just using more data at a much faster rate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason for the higher data use is because our smartphones are becoming more entrenched in all our daily activities,\u201d Vodacom said.<\/p>\n
This rapid increase in data usage goes hand-in-hand with the growth of faster networks and the availability of high-performance smartphones.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, we see that a 3G device uses lot more data than a 2G device. If you go from a 3G to a 4G device, on average your data usage increases by about three times,\u201d Vodacom said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the quality of video and other content moves to high-definition and smartphone cameras become more sophisticated, file sizes are increasing rapidly and consumers are using more data,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n
Changes in behaviour of both consumers and smartphone apps also contribute to increased data usage.<\/p>\n
Watching a 10-minute HD YouTube video can use up to 150MB of your data bundle.<\/p>\n
An older 3G phone on the 3G network would have selected an SD YouTube video, but a modern 4G smartphone on the 4G network will auto-select the HD version of the same video.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is still the same episode you\u2019re watching, but more data is used to deliver the better-quality content,\u201d Vodacom said.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest contributors to unsuspected mobile data usage is the ability of smartphones to automatically start using mobile data when you think you are attached to Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n
This feature is called Wi-Fi Assist on iOS and Smart Network Switch on Android, and it allows your smartphone to start using mobile data when the Wi-Fi signal is poor.<\/p>\n
This leads you to believe you are using Wi-Fi, but your phone is actually consuming mobile data due to a poor Wi-Fi connection.<\/p>\n
Vodacom said it provides a range of tools to track and manage your data usage, including SMS notifications and data balance queries you can perform via SMS, USSD or the My Vodacom app.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe latest versions of Android and iOS will also help you monitor and manage your data usage, or you can install one of a large number of available data monitoring apps on your phone,\u201d Vodacom said.<\/p>\n
If there is still a discrepancy between what you have measured and what you have been billed for after monitoring your usage, you can contact your operator.<\/p>\n
Many consumers are complaining that their airtime and mobile data is disappearing, but the explanation may be much simpler than expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":79185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[35863,40702,30828,35,41],"class_list":["post-220056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-disappearing-airtime","tag-disappearing-data","tag-eusebius-mckaiser","tag-headline","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220056"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220440,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220056\/revisions\/220440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}