Sharon IKECHUKWU
MTN Nigeria has explained that heavy video streaming, automatic downloads and applications running in the background are among the major reasons subscribers exhaust their internet data quickly.
The telecommunications company said many smartphone users consume data without realising it because some applications continue to run even when they are not actively using their phones. Cloud backups and increased internet activities also contribute to the rapid use of data.
Speaking at a forum tagged “Data on Trial” in Abuja on Monday, held alongside the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit, MTN Nigeria’s General Manager of Network Performance, Mike Ndukwe, said data consumption depends largely on how subscribers use their phones and the settings on their devices.
Ndukwe dismissed allegations that telecommunications companies deliberately deduct subscribers’ data, saying that data usage often results from activities carried out by users or their phones. He said, “We’re not stealing your data,” while acknowledging that customers could be concerned about how quickly their subscriptions run out, especially when money is tight.
He explained that applications such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp consume different amounts of data depending on video quality, automatic playback and downloads. According to him, watching a 15-second TikTok video could use between two and 20 megabytes of data.
Ndukwe added that watching videos in high definition consumes more data than viewing them at a lower resolution. He also noted that while ordinary WhatsApp messages use relatively little data, watching status updates, sharing videos and downloading media automatically can quickly exhaust a subscriber’s data bundle.
He advised WhatsApp users to turn off automatic downloads to reduce unnecessary data consumption. “If your WhatsApp is set on auto-download, straight away it hits your data bundle,” he said.
Ndukwe disclosed that WhatsApp had about 45 million users in Nigeria and identified TikTok as one of the platforms responsible for significant data traffic. He also said data consumption had increased by approximately 43 per cent compared with the previous year.
He urged subscribers to reduce video quality, disable automatic downloads, use data-saving features and monitor their usage through the MyMTN application.
Also speaking at the forum, MTN Nigeria’s General Manager of IT Operations, David Ogunsola, explained that the amount of data displayed on a smartphone might differ from the figures recorded by the telecommunications network.
Ogunsola attributed the differences to variations in measurement methods, background data activities and the timing of network sessions. He said, “The data that you measure on your devices is slightly different from what traverses over the network and what’s on the charge.”
