MNF : How Much Data Does Your Music Streaming Service Use?

Whether you're watching a movie or listening to music, streaming has become one of the most popular ways to receive your favourite content. Most streaming services come with a monthly subscription fee that's withdrawn from your bank account every month, but what do these services cost you in data?

Not all streaming providers release the specs of their services. However big players Spotify and Google Play Music both state publicly on their websites that the bitrate can fluctuate from anywhere between 64kbps and 320kbps - depending on what music you're streaming and the type of connection available.

Using these as a standard, we can work out how much data music is taking from your monthly quote. Let's say with a good connection you're consistently streaming music at 320 kbps. That adds up to 11.2MB every hour. Or to put it into perspective using gigabytes, it would take you over 8.5 hours of High-quality streaming to use 1GB of data.

Spotify and Google give you 8.5 hours of high-quality music for 1GB

Depending on the type mobile data plan you have, or the availability of Wi-Fi when you're streaming music, you may want to reduce these speeds manually. Reducing the bitrate to the lesser quality of 64kbps could give you almost two full days of streaming before it used 1GB of data.

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