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A photo of dancers on Grand Princess, shared via social media. Share your experiences but turn off your app updates and push notifications on your mobile devices during a cruise.

Photo by Jeff / Creative Commons BY-SA

A photo of dancers on Grand Princess, shared via social media. Share your experiences but turn off your app updates and push notifications on your mobile devices during a cruise.

8 tips to reduce bandwidth use on a ship

Cut costs & increase productivity by optimizing your mobile devices

brent-horwitz avatar

Brent Horwitz

Miramar, Florida

Whether you pay by the megabyte or the minute on a cruise ship, these tips will help you surf better by consuming less bandwidth and speeding up your browsing.

Get the most out of your data plan by following these nine simple tips.

 
DO THIS!
NOT THIS!
 
1
 
 Do this: Disable push notifications
 
 
Don't do this: Leave push notifications on
 
Push notifications contribute to data usage in your mobile data plan. Unless you have a good reason, it's smart to turn off all notifications on your smartphone, tablet or other mobile device.
 
2
 
 Do this: Use FaceTime
 
Don't do this: Use Skype
 
Skype is typically a large data consumer with no controls to accept a lower data speed. If you want a face-to-face chat, connect via Wi-Fi and use Apple's FaceTime, built into its latest iOS devices.
 
3
 
 Do this: Use Opera Mini & Rocket Optimizer
 
Don't do this: Use Safari browser
 
Opera Mini, which works on iOS, Android and Windows devices, provides a 60% boost in bandwidth capacity. It's designed to minimize data usage by mobile devices.
 
4
 
 Do this: Disable Facebook video autoplay
 
Don't do this: Enable Facebook video autoplay
 
Changing your Facebook settings to not autoplay videos on your feed will save you a lot of data.
 
5
 
 Do this: Disable app updating
 
Don't do this: Leave apps open & updating
 
Updates, if needed, should wait until you're in port. One exception: It's not recommended to turn off antivirus software.
 
6
 
 Do this: Download big files in port
 
Don't do this: Download big files while at sea
At home and in port, the Wi-Fi signal is faster than the satellite connection at sea, so if you must download large files, do it on land.
 
7
 
 Do this: Use mobile-friendly sites
 
Don't do this: Load desktop sites
Mobile friendly websites are designed to load faster and consume less data. Simply type “m.” instead of “www.” Example: m.nytimes.com
 
8
 
 Do this: Use Spotify Premium
 
Don't do this: Stream music with Pandora
Save your playlists and use an offline version of Spotify.
 

Your take

How about you? Do you have any tips for cutting down on unneeded bandwidth during a cruise? 

See anything wrong? What did we overlook? Be a co-creator! This article was updated from an earlier version.

In this series

Brent Horwitz
Brent Horwitz is an expert in high-speed Internet on land and at sea.

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