To enjoy uninterrupted streaming experience, it’s important to have enough data in your monthly internet plan. The question of course is how much data you actually need, especially for activities that use a lot of your data allowance, like video streaming. If you use your Netflix subscription regularly, is 50 GB (gigabytes) of data enough?
How Much Data You Use Streaming Netflix
Fortunately, the streaming giant provides insights to help subscribers estimate how much data you need. Netflix data approximations are given for a single device for one hour. Take into account how many tablets, televisions, or other devices might be consuming data.
Netflix offers different video quality settings so that you can conserve data usage or optimize viewing quality. They include:
- •Low or basic video quality, using up to .3 GB per hour per device
- •Medium or standard video quality, using up to .7 GB per hour per device
- •High video quality, using up to 1 GB for standard definition or up to 3 GB for high definition per hour per device
There’s a big difference between using .3 GB of data per hour and 3 GB of data per hour. Toggling these settings can conserve your data. Netflix subscribers can also control data usage settings for each individual profile on an account. The auto quality setting defaults to the highest possible quality for a viewer’s internet speed, so adjusting playback settings can reduce data usage.
With these estimates, if you have 50 GB of data, streaming Netflix on a high-quality standard definition setting at 1 GB an hour could give around 50 hours of streaming on one device or 25 hours of streaming for two devices. Using basic video quality could roughly triple the hours of streaming possible with 50 GB of data. If one device streams two hours of Netflix a day, that totals about 14 hours a week, or nearly 60 hours a month. However, streaming Netflix isn’t the only data consumption for most internet users.
What Other Streaming Activities Use Data
From video calls to YouTube tutorials, music services to online video games, other activities use data as well. If you listen to music or work from home or you have roommates or family members who do, your data usage likely extends beyond Netflix streaming. Take your whole picture into account when estimating data needs.
