Cheapest Data Plans for Online Courses
One problem most people who want to study online in Nigeria is the high cost of internet data plans. This issue is common among students who do not have the means to subscribe to heavy data plans.
This article is for anyone looking for the cheapest data plans for online courses on platforms like Udemy, Coursera, EdX, etc.
If you are having difficulties in selecting a budget-friendly data plan that is also reliable, then you need to read this article to the end.
Cheapest Data Plans for Online Courses.
Below is our list of the cheapest data plans in Nigeria for online courses. Read through our list and select the best plan for you.
1. Night Plans.
Most service providers in Nigeria have a midnight data plan that allows customers to browse the internet between the hours of 12 AM and 5 AM.
This plan is way cheaper than the monthly, daily or weekly plans.
You can see the price for each service provider below and how much data you will get when you subscribe to these plans;
9Mobile: ₦200 for 1GB (can be done multiple times, last for 1 night)
MTN: ₦50 for 500MB (can be done 4 times, last for 1 night)
Airtel: ₦25 for 250MB (can be done 4 times, last for 1 night)
Glo: ₦100 for 1GB (can be done multiple times, last for 5 nights)
From the options above, MTN, GLO and Airtel are cheaper but GLO offers more value because the data does not expire if you do not exhaust it before the stipulated time. In areas with poor GLO network coverage, you can consider the 9Mobile night plan.
The best part of the 9Mobile night plan is that you can do it as many times as possible in a single night.
To subscribe to the 9Mobile night plan, dial *229*3*11#. For the GLO night plan, dial *127*60# on your device.
2. Unlimited Plans.
If the online course you are taking has a lot of videos, you may consider going for unlimited data plans.
For unlimited plans, the best networks to patronise are internet service providers like Ntel, Swift, Spectranet, Smile, etc.
Spectranet has a plan called the Spectranet doMORE plan. This plan comes with unlimited morning browsing where you can browse from 4 AM to 8 AM; this plan is great for you if you love to sleep early and wake up early to study.
There is also unlimited night browsing on the doMORE plans that work from 1 AM to 8 AM. This plan is more expensive than the plans that have unlimited morning browsing.
You can read more about the Spectranet doMore plans here.
Another ISP you should consider in the unlimited category is swift. Swift has an unlimited daily plan that costs ₦928 per day. There’s the Swift essential plan that costs ₦7,170 per month for 18GB of data and unlimited browsing from 12 AM to 6 AM. You can find more information about the Swift data plan here.
NTEL has a two days unlimited plan for ₦1,500. With this plan, you get 10GB of data. Once you have exhausted the 10GB, you will be able to browse but at a reduced speed. You can see how to subscribe to the NTEL unlimited data plan here.
From this category, the plan with the best value for money is the Spectranet doMORE mega value plan. It costs ₦7,500 per month for 25GB of data and unlimited browsing from 1 AM to 8 AM.
Before you consider purchasing any of these data plans, make sure the service provider has a good network in your location. You can confirm by asking other people who use the network in your area or you can search if your area is among the coverage areas for the network.
Simply go to Google and search for “network name coverage areas” e.g NTEL coverage areas.
3. Be on the lookout for free Wifi’s
This is not a data plan but it is one way you could use free data to complete your online courses.
If you are in a University or Polytechnic in Nigeria, there may be places with free Wifi in your school. Places like the banks within the school premises and the school cafeteria. Some departments also offer a free Wifi connection to their students.
There are also places outside the school campus where you can get a free Wifi connection. You can check popular restaurants, hotels, hubs and parks.
Extra Tips You Should Consider
1. Buy Data in Bulk with your Friends
If you cannot afford to get an unlimited plan alone, you can consider pulling funds together with your friends or colleagues who live with you and purchase a monthly unlimited plan. This will save you and your colleagues more money.
For instance, the Spectranet doMORE mega value plan cost ₦7,500 per month. If you have two other friends in the room, you could divide the cost by 3. Each person gets to pay ₦2,500 monthly.
2. Download the app for the Course Platform
Most online course platforms will not allow you to download videos through their website. To download videos legally, you must download their mobile apps. Although not every online course app has this feature, Udemy and Coursera allow their users to download course videos through the mobile app.
This option is also good if you do not have a laptop. Instead of using the mobile version of the online course platform website, it is better to download the mobile app.
3. Download the course videos in bulk.
After downloading your online course app and subscribing to a data plan, you can download the course videos in bulk. This could be helpful if you exhaust your data before completing the course.
You can download the videos for a particular section or you download them all at once.
While downloading the videos, make sure you choose a video quality that you can see properly. Some of the best video qualities for online courses are 480p, 720p and 1080p.
4. Finish the course within the stipulated time
This depends on the course platform hosting the course you are taking.
Some course platforms have deadlines for each course, if you do not finish within the stipulated time, you may not be able to access the videos you downloaded.
Coursera has a monthly payment structure, at the end of your monthly billing cycle, you won’t be able to access courses you are taking on the platform until you renew your Coursera subscription.
Once you start taking an online course, show up regularly to complete the course. You can dedicate a few hours on specific days to complete your course e.g two hours every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
We hope you enjoyed our article on the cheapest data plans for online courses. You can also check our article on how to recover WAEC exam number online.
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