A Mobile Compression App for Data Misers Avoid busting your wireless allowance with a new compression service.
By Matt Villano
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From throttling mobile customers who use too much bandwidth to jacking up the price of data plans, wireless networks have made it increasingly difficult--and expensive--for small-business owners to take full advantage of the mobile revolution.
One solution: compression services from Onavo, a 2-year-old data management company based in Israel. Onavo's free apps, available for iPhone and Android, allow users to gorge on image- and video-rich websites; stream music and video feeds; and download massive files by shrinking data streams to handheld devices by as much as 80 percent.
The technology is straightforward: Customers load the app and set the compression rates as desired (international travelers would want maximum compression to reduce pricey roaming charges). As soon as a user clicks on a web page or piece of content, Onavo's server fetches it, compresses it and sends the thinned-down version to the smartphone. And because there's less data coming through the network, mobile browser and download speeds improve, according to Onavo CEO Guy Rosen, a former analyst and consultant in the cloud-computing industry.
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