As more and more services move to mobile devices, data usage is skyrocketing, which makes monitoring usage an incredibly important task. Only a handful of carriers still offer unlimited data while the others have restricted their plans, although many people stay within their limits, others have a hard time doing so.
Carriers are actually trying to do good by their customers with a new website, Know My App. CTIA, a wireless communications group, has come out with the website which is a compiled list of the world’s most popular mobile apps and their respective data requirements.
This list is meant to help users decide which apps they should be using and how often they should be accessed in order to stay well within monthly data limits.
The carriers, along with other organizations that are involved with CTIA, compiled the list of apps after testing their data usage and finding the average.
Along with letting consumers know how much data their favorite apps are using, Know My App also stresses to viewers that they should be accessing data-heavy applications via WiFi as often as possible. While this is an obvious tip for some, many people seem to forget that switching to WiFi whenever possible can be an easy way to prevent overages.
Carriers used to rely on data overages as a way to earn a little extra cash from customers but now that business models have been changed (for many carriers at least) it is time for CTIA and its members to help our customers rather than hurt them at every turn.
The trade group has also said that Know My App will be of use to developers as it provides tips on ways to minimize data usage and battery drain when putting together a new application for iOS, Android, and other mobile operating systems.
CTIA took advantage of AT&T’s Application Resource Optimizer, an open-source data usage tool, in order to actually test how much data was being eaten up by certain apps. Based upon previous uses of this tool, it appears to be a relatively accurate way to test data usage when looking at mobile apps.