Ways to Lower Your Data Usage With Rural Internet

In town, folks have the luxury of choosing between DSL (fiber based internet) or Fixed Wireless (cellular signal based internet). Both are wicked fast.

But when you are out of range of DSL and Fixed Wireless, the choices are satellite, and, well, satellite - HughesNet (which we sell and would be happy to set you up) and StarLink - which has it's own drawbacks and isn't available everywhere yet.

Satellite is a funny thing because the speed is fast - latency can make it seem slower, but this is a different issue than slow internet. Admittedly, latency and slow internet feel exactly the same to the user. Satellite uploads / downloads / streaming will slow down when the data allowance has been exceeded by the user. This can be resolved by:

Rural living is different in so many ways. When in Costa Rica recently, nothing could be flushed down the toilet but what your body puts in there so there was a little trashcan in every bathroom to dispose of used toilet paper (really off-putting). Thankfully our local septic is a little heartier. They had no shortage of water in Costa Rica, but family members living in Ford, WA (just an hour Northwest of Spokane) are challenged on their well; Don’t leave the water running while brushing your teeth or when washing dishes. So, there are a lot of differences in utility management comparing rural and urban. This holds true for internet as well.

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A progressive video stream is a single video file being streamed over the internet. The video will automatically expand or contract to fit the screen you are playing it on, but regardless of the device, the video file size will always be the same. If there is a poor Internet signal and the video stream cannot process quickly, a progressive video will pause and buffer - this is the turning circle on your screen.... the one that makes you really mad.

Adaptive streaming is designed to deliver video in the most efficient way possible and in the highest usable quality. This means that your streaming service has multiple videos of the same movie or TV show and is ready to display it to you in the perfect size for the screen in which you are viewing. In addition, adaptive streaming will adapt to your Internet connection speed, minimizing buffering time.

For example, if there is a slow internet connection, the adaptive video stream will switch to a smaller video files size to keep the video playing – instead of pausing and buffering. The video quality might be reduced at times to avoid buffering, but it will continue to play without interruption.

Adaptive versus Progressive video is determined by the video provider and is not a settings adjustment that can be made on an individual device. Each provider (Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, etc.) offers a way to change your stream quality. (Source , Managing Video Data Saver on myHughesNet.com )

If You Have HughesNet, Here is HughesNet's Work Around for Livestreaming Issues: (Skip this if you don't have HughesNet).

Type in myHughesNet.com to your browser to sign up. You will need your SAN (Site Account Number) and the phone number you provided when you set up the account. You will also need to come up with (create) a user name (such as johnsmith - no spaces), provide a recovery email and phone number, come up with a password, and three questions and answers for security (such as city you were born in, first pet’s name, first car you owned). These are irritating so I’m just warning you. Once you are signed up on your computer, you can sign up for the app on your phone through GooglePlay by just typing in HughesNet in the Search window. Once installed you can log in with the username and password you created.

When you open the app on your phone, you will be greeted with this screen:

Once in the phone application, click on the Hamburger (three lines) in the upper left hand corner of the screen - this is the menu. Click on Settings.

Click on Video Settings. Click "On" to the right of Video Data Saver. You also have the ability to snooze this for 4 hours if you plan on watching something that you need High-definition video and it will resume video data saver after 4 hours. This setting will automatically stream videos in DVD quality using less data. When enabled, you can stream up to 3 times more videos. This avoids you needing to go into each application (Netflix, Hulu and Amazon) and setting each application for lower definition. Pretty slick.

Now I will explain how to go into the different applications (if you don't have HughesNet) and adjust them.

1) Livestreaming Hacks For Television Over the Internet:

If you are living streaming video or TV at high definition, you are using 900 MB per hour. By setting the video at a lower quality such as "low" or "medium" in your television settings by selecting "standard definition" (SD) in stead of "high definition" (HD). This will affect latency issues due to less bandwidth traveling. Note: If you have HughesNet, the DataSaver automatically takes care of this and you don’t need to adjust in each application. I would still adjust your TV settings.

Smart TV uses 10 Mbps of bandwidth and around 1.5Gb of data consumption in one hour; a high definition 1080p uses bandwidth of 13Mbps and 1.5Gb of data /hour. Here are a few ways to reduce usage on Samsung Smart TV:

You can also check your Samsung Smart TV Data usage (how about that!) Here is how:

5) Tricks to Decrease Computer Data Usage: 

Make sure that you have minimal apps open at once: the open applications on your computer are using up data in the background - especially if they are playing videos (like a news channel). Clean out cookie files - this can constipate computer processing and use more data. Browser settings: I’m not plugging Google Chrome, but it compresses data on laptops and computers automatically consuming less data. There is a place in Chrome settings where you can set Chrome to prevent most videos from starting automatically (and using data). You can also change to a “light” version of your preferred browser to use less data. Turn devices off when not using them: turn off the computer at night or when not planning on using the computer. Add Chrome extensions: Data Saver (compresses data even more than Chrome does) and The Great Suspender (suspends activity on tabs not in use - like news sites which can run in the background on your computer) and AdBlock (prevents ads from loading which slows down the page load and increases bandwidth use loading gifs and videos) Games on Computers - if it operates on the computer with little internet use except downloading updates, it has small data impact. But if it has live interaction through the internet, it consumes large amounts of data. Most game consoles offer controls that can be used to control data usage. They can include their won web browser; be sure to close the browser and end an active session when not using it to avoid data drain. Additionally, if you watch TV through the game console change the quality settings to match the content (you don’t need HD to watch cartoons) and consider watching content on smaller screens. Video Conferencing - FaceTime, Skype, Zoom - 480Mb per hour. To decrease data usage, limit the size and resolution of the video you are watching during the meeting.

In each device, you can limit the program, app and operating system updates to critical or security updates

Google Home Data Usage:

Google Home has a Cast Feature - this allows you to send data (pictures, videos, music) from your phone to a TV or from a computer to a TV.

The way it works is the device sends packets in 20 second intervals. If the device (such as your phone) is in prolonged sleep mode, the packets will be delivered all at once one awakened and this can create a spike in usage. To prevent this, reboot the Wifi or disable to cast feature when not in use actively.

Google Home connected thermostats don’t use much data. System updates use about 50Mb per month (not much).

9) Mobile Phone Tips for Decreasing Internet Data Drain: