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In recent days there has been a lot of talk about the reintroduction of Internet traffic limits in several fixed Internet access packages in Portugal, the regulator accused operators of offering more expensive and lower quality services. The operators deny it, but what is factual is that, at least for now, at least one domestic operator has imposed a bandwidth limit of 500 GB on one of its triple play packages (telephone, TV and Internet), from which the user will have to pay extra.
If you are one of those users who browse and send and receive only emails, you may not have to pay more, but who does?
We’ve been digging around a bit to see what this 500GB cap really reaches for a common user’s spending at a time when online services are proliferating.
Streaming
Some services provide information on bandwidth consumption, as is the case with Netflix, which indicates data consumption depending on the available image quality options:
Low: 0.3 GB per hour / device
Average – SD: 0.7 GB per hour / device
High: Best video quality, up to 3GB per hour / device in HD and 7GB per hour / device in Ultra HD
In case of HBO, On the support website are only available information related to mobile data consumption while using the service. Currently, HBO only provides 1080p images in the highest quality, even on devices with higher resolution displays. Since many mobile devices have screens with fewer pixels, these values will necessarily be lower than when using, for example, the HBO application on a smart TV.
The consumption is between 600 and 800 MB for each episode lasting 40 minutes.
On the American website of Disney + Complete information on bandwidth consumption on various types of devices is available:
Mobile devices
| Setting up data usage | Maximum video quality | Maximum audio quality | Approximate data usage per hour |
| Stream only via Wi-Fi | 1080 HD | Dolby Atmos | 2.5 GB |
| Automatic | HD | 5.1 surround sound | 2.0 GB |
| Save the data | SD | Stereo | 0.6 GB |
Devices / Set-Top-Box connected directly
| Setting up data usage | Maximum video quality | Maximum audio quality | Data usage per hour |
| Automatic | Ultra HD / 4K | Dolby Atmos | 7.7 GB |
| Moderate | HD | 5.1 surround sound | 2.0 GB |
| Save the data | SD | Stereo | 0.7 GB |
Web browser
| Setting up data usage | Maximum video quality | Maximum audio quality | Data usage per hour |
| Automatic | 1080 HD | Stereo | 4.2 GB |
| Moderate | HD | Stereo | 1.2 GB |
| Save the data | SD | Stereo | 0.6 GB |
In case of Amazon Prime Video, bandwidth consumption is in line with those announced by other operators:
Good quality (SD): 0.38GB per hour
Improved quality: 1.4 GB per hour
Best quality: Up to 6.84GB per hour (1080p to 4K)
OR Apple TV + it does not provide official data on consumption, but on some sites, such as 9To5Mac and Macrumours, about 2 GB per hour are indicated for maximum quality and 750 MB for intermediate image quality.
OR Youtube it does not indicate the consumption numbers, but through the page with the video quality guide by resolution it is possible to reach the amount of data that is consumed per hour:
144p: No information
240p: 225 MB per hour
360p: 315MB per hour
480p: 562.5 MB per hour
720p 30 FPS: 1237.5MB (1.24GB) per hour
720p 60 FPS: 1856.25 MB (1.86 GB) per hour
1080p 30FPS: 2.03GB per hour
1080p 60FPS: 3.04GB per hour
1440p (2K) 30FPS: 4.28GB per hour
1440p (2K) 60FPS: 6.08GB per hour
2160p (4K) 30FPS: 10.58GB per hour
2160p (4K) 60 FPS: 15.98 GB per hour
Audio streaming
In Portugal, there are some audio streaming services that also consume bandwidth and help to reach the 500 GB limit:
OR Spotify has three levels of sound quality they spend:
40 MB / hour (normal quality)
70 MB / hour (high quality)
150 MB / hour (extreme quality)
Apple Music
As usual at Apple, there is little information on how much this service spends per hour, but it is known that if you only listen to music with a bitrate of 256 kbps you will consume 115 MB per hour, so to spend 1 GB you will have to listen to music for 8 hours and a half.
Tidal
This is one of the two music streaming services available in Portugal that provides lossless compression music. Of course, this comes at a price, both monetary and in terms of bandwidth spent. So, if you listen to an hour of music at the highest quality, you will spend 144 MB of data per hour.
Online games
The data presented in relation to bandwidth consumption during online gaming has been collected in different gaming forums XBox Live, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC are from last year, but even so, with these you can get an idea more or less precise how much each game spends and do the math for the month.
Battlefield VBattlefield V uses about 150 MB per hour on a server with 64 people playing together.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4: Black Ops 4, this game consumes 40 MB per hour. Some game modes consume more because there are multiple players at the same time. For example, in the Battle Royale mode, which can reach 100 simultaneous players, 80 MB per hour is spent.
Point A 2: A 40-minute game requires between 50 and 100 MB. 1 GB of traffic corresponds to 10 to 20 departures.
Fallout 76: One hour of play corresponds to 60 MB. However, this value will depend on several factors and can be higher depending on the situation and the number of players.
FIFA 19: This classic football game can consume between 20 and 30 MB per hour when playing online.
Fortnite: In the Epic forum, several users have reported a consumption of between 45 and 100 MB per hour.
League of Legends: A game of life between 30 and 40 minutes can reach 100 MB of data consumed. This value will always depend on the mode and number of simultaneous players.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds: Several users have reported that games lasting between 20 and 30 minutes consume between 15 and 50 MB. These values depend on the platform used and the game settings.
Red Dead Online: This game can easily reach 150MB per hour or more. There are reports of users who have spent up to 30 GB per day just on this game.
World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor: In WoW the way I play determines the amount of data consumed. If you play alone and don’t sell many items you will spend a few MB. If you like to raid the traffic reaches 25 MB per hour, already a 30 vs 30 PvP battle spends around 160 MB.
In this short journey through the consumption of various popular applications, some things that many people do every day on the Internet have been left out, such as legal (and illegal) downloads, game updates, and various operating systems of the devices you have at home.
How to do the math
In this case, the accounts are simple: find out how much time in hours per day you use on average each service and multiply that amount by consumption and then by 30. If you use more than one of these services, you will have to repeat that account for each and add the various results.
But as you may have noticed, the 500GB offered is very short in the vast majority of usage scenarios.
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