App Attack #024: Apps to Monitor Data Usage

Besides being a data monitoring app, Onavo Extend goes a step further by minimizing your data usage (and your bills). Using data compression technology on Onavo's cloud servers, the app automatically compresses download data on your device. According to the developers, Onavo Extend compresses data by up to 80 percent. Therefore, this is also a must-have app for users who travel overseas often as it can help reduce roaming charges by offering a leaner web surfing experience on their mobile devices.

While iOS isers can view the data usage by each app on Onavo Extend, Android users have to download a separate free app, Onavo Count.

You can track data usage across three areas, which are Mobile, Roaming and Wi-Fi.

For the Mobile section, you fill in the details regarding the type of mobile plan you have - pay monthly or pay-as-you-go, the amount of free data bundled, and the date of your billing cycle. You also can create notifications to alert once you've hit the data limit, after which My Data Manager will disable the data connection.

If you want a detailed breakdown of your data usage, My Data Manager presents it in three categories: month, day and hour.

M1 customers can check service-related information such as re-contract eligibility and unbilled usage from the free My M1 app. Information presented under "My Usage" shows the estimated unbilled usage of calls/SMS/MMS/data from the customer's last bill cycle.

SingTel customers have access to the My SingTel app, which allows them to check their latest local and roaming data usage records on-the-go.

Data usage records are updated once a day and may vary from the actual bill statement. Customers also can view their bills in PDF format.

Using your Hub IDs, StarHub customers can login to My StarHub app to view billing details, check service contract expiry date, activate International Roaming service and of course, monitor their data usage.