New FB feature will eat into your data plan before you even know it
You must already be aware that video posts on Facebook started up a while ago and most videos now autoplay without your consent. Though you can switch off the option for autoplay on videos or tweak it to play only when you are on Wi-Fi, it is not a default option. If you are new to using Facebook on your smartphone, you could be already exhausting your data plans, unknowingly.
However, Facebook is now going to make your internet plans even more expensive. A new option to allow uploading of HD photos on Facebook posts will not only put your internet data plan in the red zone sooner, it will also burn a hole into your wallet. Uploading HD photos or viewing the HD photos on your timeline will be a concern, especially if you are on a mobile network.
If you are in any of the countries (including India) where mobile internet is expensive, then your mobile bills will just turn out uglier each month. With the ability to upload HD photo content, you don’t only pay high to upload, but you will also pay high in the bargain to view what your friends and following pages have to show you in HD.
Though the HD photos will not upload maximum resolutions from your camera or alike, it limits the photo sizes to a maximum of 2048px in width.
Though you have the option to control HD photos uploading and viewing videos automatically, you should know that Facebook addiction could cost you heavy in the bargain.
At present, you can upload/view videos with a maximum file size of 25MB each. You can also upload or view 360-degree videos on Facebook. So just imagine if you are viewing videos of around 25MB per post, you can exhaust your 1GB data plan by simply viewing 40 full-length videos in a month.
And if you are on a 4G data plan, you could be seeing even higher bills each month. As you all know that 4G internet data is faster than 3G, and 2G subsequently, tapping on a video will buffer the entire video in the background within seconds. And if you find out that the video is now worth watching, you should know that you have already paid for downloading the video even without watching it. Same is the case with YouTube and other streaming services which will be pretty expensive if you are on a fair-usage data plan or are paying by the megabyte.
It won’t be long when Facebook will also enable HD video uploading on the social platform.
