Maximizing the use of Mobile Data when working from home and avoid excessive data plan overage charges.
Introduction:
Not all of us are able to use a wired internet connection when working from home. This can be for many reasons including location and poor service offerings within the area. This forces Mobile Workers to use mobile hot spots and Mobile Phone data plans to access company resources. This is great for temporary access like reading a few emails. It can become difficult and challenging when working at home on a regular basis.
This article will detail how to conserve data to maximize usage before being hit with hefty mobile data overage charge/s. I will cover some useful configurations on a windows 10 device and then the benefits of VDI over traditional technologies like a VPN.
The challenge with most mobile phone or 3G / 4G data plans, is not everyone has unlimited data or a large data plan. The challenge arises when you consume the data plan before the month is up. This creates a cost as you would then be billed by the Carrier every day for any additional consumption over the purchased plan (if limit removed). This can be expensive and a example of overage charges could be in the region of £2.50 Per 100MB of data consumed.
That’s £25.00 per additional GB of data used. This could equate to £50.00+ per day based on two GB per day usage. lets say there are 15 days left, you could incur a charge of £750.00+ for data for that particular month.
To reduce the impact or to possibly avoid this, I have listed a few steps to reduce the bandwidth consumption whilst working from home on a 3G / 4G Mobile hot spot. This includes the client device and VDI / Remote access.
Metered Connection on Windows 10:
For all those using Windows 10 devices, there is a feature called Metered Connection. This essentially prevents windows services and applications from automatically using data.
To enable Metered Connection, you would need to navigate to Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi. Click on the Wi-Fi connection you are connecting to (hot spot).
Then set the connection as a Metered connection as shown in the image above.
OneDrive Bandwidth limiting or disabling using metered licencing:
To prevent OneDrive syncing data, you would need to edit the settings within one drive.
When using the metered connection, you would need to ensure the highlighted tick box is selected “Automatically pause sync when this device is on a metered network.”
If you really do need OneDrive, then you can also configure bandwidth limiting on one drive.
You can set both the download and upload rate within the network tab of Windows.
Disable windows updates whilst using a metered connection:
One of the biggest consumers of data is windows updates. Check to ensure that updates are not being downloaded when a metered connection is enabled.
Ensure the option “Download...
