Making the most out of your Internet data allowance |29 July 2016

If you have been anywhere near the Facebook Social Media group known as ‘Gossip Corner’, at one time or another you would have come across a group member complaining about either the poor quality speed of the internet here in Seychelles, what they expressed as being overly expensive prices for the quality of packages on offer, or simply that the services are not reliable, whereby they face sometimes long hours of internet down time, or short but repetitive down time. There is even a group member who has taken it upon himself to start an online petition, because he feels that the internet service here in Seychelles is far too expensive and that the packages on offer are set up primarily to benefit the ISPs, rather than the clients.

The group member in his post, explains that ISPs here in Seychelles should adopt similar packages he claims is on offer in Mauritius. These packages include unlimited internet service, but they differ in terms of the speed on offer depending on the amount of money you are willing to pay, e.g. 512Kbps, 1Mbps, 2Mbps, 4Mbps. This is a far cry from the package system that ISPs are using here in the Seychelles, whereby the amount of money you pay is reflected upon how much data you are allocated for a month, e.g. for Intelvision packages can be seen in the table below, and the value is not including VAT.

(http://www.intelvision.sc/Internet.html)

And the table below is for Cable and Wireless broadband internet service, and similarly to that of Intelvision they also provide packages that allocates a monthly data allowance, rather than speed. The prices for Cable and Wireless is also exclusive of VAT. Also it is to be noted that Cable and Wireless advertises its download speed in kbps rather than Mb, but basically 1024 kbps is 1 Mb, and 2048 kbps is 2 MB.

(http://www.cwseychelles.com/internet/packages/postpaid)

Below is the ADSL broadband internet package offers, from Mauritius’ Orange company. This information can be viewed from their website www.orange.mu, or more precisely http://www.myt.mu/offers/adsl.php. The prices below are VAT inclusive and the exchange rate use to convert to Seychelles rupee was obtained from google on July 20, 2016, which was 1 Seychelles rupee to 2.74 Mauritian rupees. Notice that all the packages on offer have been advertised as being Unlimited usage, meaning you can use as much data as you like in that one month of payment, but depending on the price paid, your download speed would be limited to either, 512 kbps, 1 Mbps, 2 Mbps, or 4 Mbps. I would assume that these speed would fluctuate depending on the ratio of people sharing your bandwidth (speed). Nevertheless, it does indeed look more interesting, than what we, in Seychelles, are used to.

In addition, the Mauritian Orange telecom company, offers specific Fibre optic packages with excellent download speeds, ranging from 10 Mbps to an astonishing 100 Mbps, with an equally amazing competitive price line.

I guess a lot of other things needs to be put into consideration, before an educated comparison can be made, between the above packages from both countries. One important comparison is the population difference of Mauritius and Seychelles. Another might be the number of internet subscribers per population. Although, others may argue, that the more interesting and affordable the packages are, therefore the more people are willing to subscribe to the internet service, and not just that, but you have more people subscribing to the more interesting and affordable higher costing packages, because they look more interesting, and therefore far more tempting. Thus, more people has the option to choose a costlier but more affordable package, because they know that their internet surfing experience would be far more satisfying.

But for now let’s focus on ways to make the most of the packages we have on offer. For everyone using Microsoft Windows Operating System, please remember to go to your Windows setting, and make sure that your Windows is not automatically updating in the background, since it will most likely take a huge chunk of your Data Allowance, especially if you are on the lower range packages. Be aware that some Windows updates may be more than 1GB, those known as Service Packs. So it is your responsibility to know how to prevent these downloads to happen without you knowing.

Windows 8 and 8.1

To turn on Automatic Updates yourself, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you're in the desktop portion of Windows 8 and open the Charms Bar by swiping in from the right edge of the screen (or, if you're using a mouse, by pointing to the lower-right corner of the screen and moving the mouse pointer up), then tapping or clicking Settings, tapping or clicking Change PC Settings.
2. Welcome to the Settings App. Tap or click on the menu option at the bottom of your screen labelled Update and Recovery.
3. Tap or click on the Choose How Updates Get Installed option on the white part of your screen. It’s a little less obvious than the other buttons around. You’ll find it just below the Check Now button.
4. Tap or click on the drop down menu at the top of the screen to change your automated installation settings. Options include being able to download updates but let you choose to install them, checking for updates but letting you choose when to download and install them and never checking updates. Tap or click on any of these options. To stop Windows from downloading updates automatically, select the Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them. It’s never a good idea to stop Windows from checking for updates altogether by choosing the last one, Never check for updates.

Windows 7

To turn on Automatic Updates yourself, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, type Windows update in the search box, and then click Windows Update in the Programs list. Click on Windows Update.
2. In the left pane, click Change settings.
3. Click on the drop down menu below the Important updates title.
4. Select theCheck for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them (It’s never a good idea to stop Windows from checking for updates altogether by choosing the last one, Never check for updates), and then click OK.

For those of you using Windows 10, well bad luck. Microsoft with its latest instalment of its famous operating system, has opted for a very controversial approach. Microsoft took it upon itself to choose for its customers, to always allow windows to update itself, you can only delay it. But off course there is always a way to bypass this blunder by Microsoft. Microsoft’s reasoning behind this is that it is ensuring that PCs using its operating system are always up-to-date with the latest security patches, newer versions of its applications and programs, and improvement made upon the operating system itself.

So basically there are two ways of stopping these data sucking updates, and one of them isn’t very easy but is very effective, and it can only be done on the Windows 10 Professional, Enterprise, and Education editions version, while the other way can be done on basically all Windows 10 version. So here we go for the easiest solution, which basically works on those of you who’s connecting to the internet using WIFI. If you are on a mobile data network, Windows 10 should automatically label it as a ‘Metered’ connection, and it won’t download updates on this connection. For WIFI connection you can follow these steps,

1. To change this option, open the Action Centre from your taskbar (It is usually the icon nearest to your date and time, if you are using the touchscreen keyboard, then it is the second closest), this will open the Action Centre panel on the right of your screen.
2. In the Action Centre panel find the All Settings icon and click on it.
3. Which will open a new app window labelled as Settings.
4. Select Network & Internet.
5. Scroll down, and select “Advanced options” below the list of Wi-Fi networks.
6. Enable the “Set as metered connection” option. This option only affects the Wi-Fi network you’re currently connected to, but Windows will remember this setting for each individual Wi-Fi network. Windows will still check for updates and will notify you when there are any new updates, so you can choose whether or not you want Windows to download and install the updates.

Now let us move on to the more complicated method, only available on Windows 10 Professional, Enterprise, and Education editions, which requires you changing settings within the Windows Group Policy.

1. Open Run. This can be done in two ways, pressing the Windows key + R, or right clicking on the Start icon, and selecting Run.
2. In the Run window type gpedit.msc, which will open the group policy editor.
3. Navigate to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Update.
4. Locate the “Configure Automatic Updates” setting in the right pane and double-click it.
5. Set it to “Enabled” and then select your preferred setting. Choose “Notify for download and notify for install.”
6. Save the change. You’re done. Now Windows will check for downloads and notify you if there are, but it won’t download automatically.

So these are some ways of helping you deal with the background downloads that eat away at your allocated internet data. But remember, it is recommended that you do update your system regularly, to increase your security, and ensure that Windows work as it should. So plan ahead for updating your system and antivirus as well, and don’t forget your smartphones, they update as well.