No more data volume: these services also work throttled

If you no longer have any data volume, you can only surf the web in a restricted manner. In this practical tip, we show you which services continue to work and which tricks help you out of necessity.

No more data volume: throttling with announcement

• If you have used up your data volume for this month, you will always receive an SMS from your mobile service provider. A warning is often sent before the expiration.
• New data volumes can be booked with almost every provider. The costs for this are usually between 3 and 15 euros. However, most users prefer to wait until the data volume is replenished.
• In a standard tariff, you surf at a download speed of up to 21.6 Mbit / s, and up to 3.6 Mbit / s in upload. After throttling, only a measly 64 kBit / s are possible in the download and 16 kBit / s in the upload.

Data volume consumed: services that also function throttled

• In general, many apps and online services still work with a restricted connection. Only a few apps are unusable without a decent internet connection. This primarily includes online games.
• The basic apps like WhatsApp and Twitter still work without major problems even at reduced speed. If only text is loaded, that's not a big problem. Since WhatsApp compresses the images a lot, the sending and receiving of images is only a little slower.
• It looks different with Facebook. Here, images are always sent in full quality, which often leads to interruptions when uploading. The latest news in your timeline is also loaded, but much slower.
• However, you can completely write off data-intensive services such as YouTube. Also picture services like Instagram can only be used with a very long waiting time. Frustration quickly arises here.

No more data volume: use offline functions

• Some apps offer are well prepared for such moments. With an offline function, the most important data is downloaded beforehand in the WLAN and is then available for retrieval even without an Internet connection.
• You can do this, for example, by downloading songs from the Spotify app. All desired songs are then also available offline. With the download in Google Maps you can download individual map sections in advance.

Data volume used up: There are these alternatives

• If you don't want to buy additional data from your mobile operator, you can also get fast internet elsewhere. There are numerous free hotspots in Germany.
• If you are traveling with a friend or family, you can also access their data volume. This is possible using tethering. A smartphone works as a kind of router that opens its own WLAN network from the mobile Internet.

In the next practical tip, we will show you how much data volume WhatsApp uses.