To reduce the contribution of data communications for background applications to network congestion, the examples implement techniques in which congestion detection leads a mobile device to impose restriction on data communications by any application running in the background. The mobile device may detect congestion and/or the need to restrict background data communications in response to a message or instruction received from a node of the network; or the mobile device may itself more directly detect congestion from monitoring and analysis of device/network interaction behavior and trends. Upon detecting congestion, the mobile device turns on a background data restriction. For example, with the restriction on, all applications only running in the background without direct user interaction are blocked from sending requests for data communication to/through the network. However, with the restriction active, the mobile device can still provide data communication in response to user interaction with the device.