Estimate Your Data Usage

For our Fixed Broadband plans it doesn’t really matter as all plans are Unlimited usage.

However if you have a Mobile phone and are using your Mobile data, you need to know how much you are using.

The rule of thumb for mobile is…if you don’t need to do an update urgently, or download something urgently or watch something urgently, wait until you’re back on a fixed Wi-Fi connection.

You can actually turn off your Mobile Data completely if you are wanting to limit usage, or you can turn it off on a per App basis. Just do search on how to turn off mobile data usage on your phone.

Mostly it will work out to somewhere between 2GB to 10GB per hour.

If you are unsure how to see what quality you are streaming (or unsure what all of this means) then assume the highest which is 10GB per hour.

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Netflix (and most streaming services) like Stan, ABC, SBS, Apple TV, etc

Data used per hour, per device:

• Standard definition: up to 1 GB.
• High definition: up to 3 GB.
• Ultra high definition (4K): up to 7 GB.

Or average data usage per movie for Apple TV:

• “Best Available” uses up to 25 GB for 4K HDR resolution.
• “Better” uses about 6 GB per movie.
• “Good” uses about 3 GB per movie.

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Youtube

Data used per hour, per device:

• Youtube uses a variable bit rate but works out similar to the above Netflix and Apple TV rates
• Somewhere between 1GB to 10GB per hour of streaming.

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Gaming

Data downloads for gaming can be massive, in the 100’s of GB.

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Zoom

Data used per hour, per device:

• 1 GB to 3GB

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Audio like Spotify, Apple Music, Podcasts, Audible, ABC Radio, etc.

Data used per hour, per device:

• 0.1GB to 0.2GB

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Social Media like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, Snapchat, etc.

It is almost impossible to estimate this usage accurately. For just basic social viewing and interaction it is estimated you will use around 5GB of data a month if you are a fairly active user, however as soon as you start streaming and watching videos and clicking more actively into other links this estimate changes completely and you need to base it more on the Youtube hourly estimate above.

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General web browsing, online shopping, email, etc.

An estimate would probably also be around 5GB a month of standard browsing, however this is completely user dependent and you will only have an accurate idea after a few month’s usage.