Smile Communications Nigeria has introduced new value offering for customers to address data depletion while browsing the internet.
The innovation, Blocking Buttons and Speed Control, helps customers, especially internet users, to stay on without early data depletion. It is available to all Smile customers through specialised features on the Smile customer portal.
Apart from prolonging customer stay on the internet, the solution boosts broadband penetration, in line with the Nigerian National Broadband Plan.
Smile Communications Chief Corporate Services Officer, Lee-Ann Cassie, said Blocking Buttons and Speed Control was introduced to enhance customer experience.
“We were able to identify four categories of websites that consume a lot of data and we created buttons that once activated will block access to these categories of websites,” she explained.
Websites identified as the major causes of data depletion due to unprompted downloads and updates include Cloud Storage, Automatic Update, Video Streaming, and Bit Torrenting.
Cassie said “customers also have the additional functionality to block access to high data usage sites via MySmile Account in order to manage their data usage.”
Sites could be blocked and unblocked at the click of a button, which gives customers the power and ability to control the speed options of 1mbps, 2mbps, up to 5mbps.
Speed capping prevents streaming sites defaulting to high definition (HD) which uses more data.
Recently, Smile made it possible for customers to change the speed of internet connection at will via online Smile account. This enables customers to manage data usage by ensuring that sites that automatically select high definition data for very fast networks do not use up data unnecessarily.
For example, on a super-fast internet connection like Smile, YouTube detects the speed of connection and automatically delivers high definition video, whereas on slower networks, the customer gets standard definition, Cassie said.
With the new solution, customers now have the option of reducing connection speed when using sites like YouTube and then going back to high speed for emails, browsing or downloading.
The overall aim of introducing the solution is the desire to encourage customers to fully optimise Smile network capacity as well as maximise all possible and accruing benefits while on the network.