Use off-peak data

This information is useful for anyone on an Internet plan that splits the time of day into peak (generally 7am – 1am) and off-peak (1am – 7am).

nbn Sky Muster™ satellite plans are among these plans.

Such plans tend to provide very generous data allowances for the quieter, off-peak period. The trade-off is, of course, that you need to be awake during the dark hours of a day.

You could stay up until 1am to do data-intensive tasks such as uploading large files (such as backups, photos or videos), synchronising business data, watching videos, and so on.

Or you could organise your software to automatically perform these tasks during the off-peak time, while you sleep.

This page provides an overview of the concepts required to find your own solutions to schedule and use your off-peak data, and provides advice about specific software packages where appropriate.

If you need a review of what data actually is, please visit our What is data? page.

What is data?

Use Connection

Parental and Data Usage Control Tips

Use Connection

Schedule uploads or exports

It may be possible to schedule exports of large or computer-intensive files, such as photo or video files. As we find information, we’ll add it to this section.

Schedule YouTube uploads

This ability requires a small piece of software called an “extension” to the Google Chrome web browser. The extension is not available for any other browser (for example, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari, Internet Explorer, or Mozilla Firefox).

This particular extension is called the Youtube Upload Timer, and it allows you to schedule the uploading of videos to YouTube during off peak hours.

It’s a different feature to the YouTube video scheduling feature, which does NOT schedule the uploading of the file from your computer to YouTube; only the time when the video becomes publicly available on YouTube.

Schedule downloads

There are software packages called “Download managers” that will allow you to schedule the download of large files from a remote computer to your own.

These recent lists from Lifewire and Techradar include some software packages that permit scheduling large downloads.

Note that we haven’t tested all these applications, and cannot recommend one over another for any specific situation.

Record and download video files

PlayOn Cloud is a mobile app that can be used to record and then download video files during off peak times. This is useful for those on satellite connections (who usually have unused off peak data), those who are experiencing network congestion, slow equipment and those wanting to download movies and clips for times when you need to watch offline e.g plane trips and travel.

When you select a video file in the app, PlayOn streams and records the file to their server in the cloud (the recording does not use your data/connection). Once the recording has completed, you can download the file from the cloud to your device, and downloads can be scheduled to occur in off peak times or times when there is no network congestion.

Cloud recordings are stored for 7 days and must be ‘downloaded’ before then or the recording will expire.

There is a cost for using PlayOn Cloud.

For details on using PlayOn Cloud, visit the BIRRR website.

More information

An extensive range of tips and tricks for managing data usage can be found on the BIRRR website.

Information on this page has been created from information on the BIRRR webpage, and will be transferred to the Regional Tech Hub website over time.