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You can find a variety of tips and tricks online which suggest the best ways in which to improve the speed of your mobile internet connection. However, many of these will be convoluted methods which will see you wrapping your phone in foil or tinkering around with the network settings. Thankfully there are some simple ways in which you can get your GPRS connection up to a speed that will make it feel almost as fast as the access that fixed line *cable providers* can offer desktop computer users.

Mobile Browser Usage

Most mobiles will have their own built-in web browser, which is software specifically designed to condense interactions with internet resources, rendering the process manageable on the limited hardware of a typical handset. Check to see that your browser has the option to compress images, block adverts and remove any extraneous elements from a website. This will allow pages to load at a faster rate and will reduce the impact on your data tariff.

If you have a smartphone which is capable of storing Cookies, the identifying pieces of information deposited in your browser's offline storage folders by most websites, then you should regularly clear these from your memory. This can help improve performance if your mobile internet connection suddenly feels as though it is struggling for no obvious reason.

Phone Choice

Many people fail to recognise just how much the type of phone you use will affect your GPRS internet experience, but it really makes a difference. Sometimes you may feel that a website is taking a long time to load because of your connection. However, the performance issues may well be due to the fact that the handset you are using is unable to handle the task of displaying the site correctly without bringing its processor to its knees. This is why investing in a smartphone with a powerful CPU could well assist in making the mobile internet experience seem faster and more fluid.

Smartphones with processors clocked at 600-800Mhz are arguably a minimum requirement by modern standards, although 1GHz single core chips will perhaps provide the best balance between price and performance. Dual core models such as the Samsung Galaxy SII are clearly at the top end of the market but can bring the web to life in ways which were previously impossible.

Avoid Peak Periods

If you have a home broadband connection you may realise that ADSL and *cable providers* will experience peaks in usage during the evenings when more people are at home and online. The same is true of the mobile world. There are certain times in the day that will see far more people taking to their phones in order to surf the web. This can result in data traffic bottlenecks that can slow your browser to a crawl and make the whole experience seem rather tedious. If you can work your browsing habits around these digital rush-hours then you will be able to enjoy the best that your connection has to offer without being hindered by the actions of others.

At the end of the day there is only so much you can reasonably do to improve mobile internet speeds. While signal strength combined with coverage clearly play a major role, common sense and the above tips should
help in giving you the edge you seek.

About the author
Shirley Jones is a freelance content writer and she writes articles and blogs on cable providers and other internet service related technologies.