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Can anyone suggest a suitable way to limit internet bandwidth? I am using 3G mobile data.

I know how to limit the maximum data usage but I need to control the bandwidth so that my mobile data allotment doesn't get consumed too quickly.

What I'd like is a way to control the following situations:

  1. Sometimes we don't need the whole body of an webpage, hence it is desired that we can stop loading the page further when we wish. But on a high speed connection you cannot stop loading the page before it gets fully loaded.

  2. Some websites with embedded do not have an option to stop loading the video, hence sometimes leave me no option but to close the tab to limit data-consumption.

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It's not possible to limit the download bandwidth via code running on the device. It's up to the sender how fast to send data. All that such an app could do is to throw away packets once they arrive at the device, which is after they've been counted by your carrier. Those packets would then have to be resent, being counted again. The effect would be that websites &c. would take longer to load and use more data to do so.

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  • Options could include telling the browser to not load images/videos by default (but on demand). AFAIK some browsers support that. If those files are not requested, no packets would be sent for them. A side-effect of this would be the pages being displayed faster, as loading would be limited to plain (HTML) text, maby some Javascript, and stylesheets.
    – Izzy ♦
    Sep 15, 2013 at 11:24
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    If OS throws away the packets before it gets to TCP layer, it's noticed by TCP as loss and rate-limiting will come into effect, instructing the sender to lower their transmission rate. So yes, some packets are lost, but the overall download speed can significantly be limited.
    – Mansour
    Jan 5, 2015 at 0:20
  • @Mansour That's true, each packet drop will cause the data rate to decrease, but it will then keep increasing until more packets are dropped. That's useful for traffic shaping in general, but as I said, the overall effect is to increase the total data use as seen by the carrier.
    – Dan Hulme
    Jan 6, 2015 at 8:23
  • If you mean that the data received after viewing a single page would be more than the actual page data, then yes that's right. But it's the slower speed of the connection that will save the user data over long periods of time. Speed of the connection has a large influence on usage. This is exactly what the OP asked about: how to slow down the connection to give user a chsnce to stop a bulky website from loading all its resources.
    – Mansour
    Jan 6, 2015 at 12:47
  • Instead of dropping the packet why can't the system send a delayed ACK at TCP level?
    – Anshul
    Jun 17, 2015 at 16:09
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Opera Mini has options to enable loading images and also to specify the quality of images, if they are loaded.

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If you are rooted:

Installing a firewall(like DroidWall) helps to prevent unwanted apps to access the network.

Installing an adblocker(like AdAway) will prevent ads from loading, and in turn reduce network usage.

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To limit the bandwidth, switch from 3G to 2G. You will still have internet connectivity but It will be slower, hence taking a longer time to use up your monthly internet traffic. The bonus is that using 2G will probably also increase battery duration as it consumes less power than 3G.

On the other side, you can install a browser that has an option to load media only when you click on their placeholders.

I know that Chrome lets you enable data saver in settings which saves you around 15% of data while surfing (my usual percentage).

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If you have root access for your android device, you can use "BradyBound" app. Which is available on playstore for free. You can simply limit the bandwidth using this app. If you doesn't have root access, try "Bandwidth ruler free" (BWR). This free version of the app doesn't have access to all features.

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  • Link to the app?
    – Manubhargav
    Nov 29, 2015 at 3:09

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