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Lolita VyshniakJanuary 2, 20192 min read

How to Estimate Your Data Usage on a Mobile Device

As modern smartphone owners we are constantly lacking one of two resources. Either the battery is prematurely empty or the high-speed data volume is used up and we are surfing at a snail’s pace.

But how can you reduce your data consumption, and what actually consumes so much data?

We’ve prepared a crash course which will help you to understand how you spend data (be ready to see a lot of numbers) and tips on greatly minimizing data and avoiding wasting it.

Type: Surfing the web

Depending on the amount of images and content on a website this number can be higher or lower but we normal expect the average web page to take 1.5 - 2.5 MB to load.

Surfing the Web

Example: If you visit up to 25 web pages per day your data consumption will be about 1.5 GB per month.

Type: VOIP Calls using WhatsApp, Skype, Viber, etc.

VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) providers use different codec’s for their VOIP calls. Most use G.729 which runs at 32 Kbps. So, for every minute someone uses VOIP it’s around .5 MB of data usage. The best quality codec, G.711 runs at 87 Kbps - so every minute results in about 1.3 MB of data consumption.

VOIP Calls

Example: 1 hour call (G.729) on VOIP is 30 MB’s of data or on HD (G.711) it’s about 81 MB’s.

Type: Video Calling

Depending on bandwidth this number will vary greatly. Standard bandwidth in America is about 2-4 Mbps and High Bandwidth is about 4+ Mbps. If a customer spends 1 Minute on Video - it is about 8 MB. If Bandwidth is high the App will switch to HD and it will be about 12 MB per minute.

Video Calling

Example: Spending 15 minutes a day, every day for a month on HD Video calling will consume about 5400 MB (5.27 GB) vs. Avg. Bandwidth will be about 3600 MB (3.5 GB).

Type: Social Media

Did you know that social media platforms like Instagram use up to about 12 MB per minute if you spend time looking at everything on your feed. Considering there is not much to read on Instagram, users typically spend 3-5 minutes on it which will result in less data. But those who spend about 10-15 minutes on checking out every photo, video, and stories will use about 60 - 80 MB within that time. This also translates to comparable consumption with facebook and snapchat.

YouTube

Type: YouTube

The size of each YouTube video varies by encoding, resolution and length, but even on the small phone screen, YouTube videos can use about one megabit per second. This works out to using 7.5MB of data per minute of video. It means that a half-hour video can use over 200 MB.

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Lolita Vyshniak

Lolita Vyshniak, Leading Channel Manager. Lolita has a master’s degree in management and logistics and has extensive research experience in building healthy relationships with clients.

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