Roke Manor Research has developed a smart phone app that cuts network traffic for operators.
Marketed as SmartSwitch, it is a collection of software-controlled techniques that can cut congestion with "zero infrastructure investment from network operators", claimed Roke.
The pay-off for the consumer is that it also increases phone life between charges.
Demonstrated on an Android phone, it works by restricting the phone's and phone user's behaviour through a series of 'policies', either supplied by the network operator, or set-up by the user.
For example, it can rejecting individual mail prompts from the server, and later accept the backlog of mails in one transaction.
Or it can automatically off-load YouTube playback to a Wi-Fi network where possible.
"One policy could ask the user to set a desired battery life: five days for example," Roke business manager Prasid Shah told Electronics Weekly. "If the user began watching video over the network, they would be gently reminded that too much of this would break the five day limit."
It could also be used in machine-machine applications, limiting a vending machine to sending a few large chunks of data instead of many small ones, said Shah.