How much broadband data do i need

Although not referred to in this article, be aware that there are also megabits Mb and Gigabits Gb. The average person used 4. Data use has steadily increased every year included in the report too — with the stats going back to In this section we'll give you an idea of what you can do overall with popular monthly data allowances available on UK mobile networks. That said, social media apps can use quite a lot more, with just 20 minutes of Facebook use a day potentially using up a 1GB data allowance, based on figures from Wirefly.

View Deal. On Netflix for example, data use ranges from around 1GB of data every 6 hours for low quality to 3GB or more every 1 hour for high quality, and some services will use more. However, it is not suitable for those who stream lots of movies, or want to watch a lot of other videos. Or you could cut the music and stream a few movies on low or medium video quality. Use all your data on that and you could stream up to around 32 hours of content on medium quality — more than the length of a series boxset, though of course turning the quality up substantially cuts that figure down.

With that much monthly data you could on average stream around 4 hours of music, browse the web 2 hours and stream an episode of your favourite show every day, or potentially even a film. Even with video streamed in high quality you could manage around 30 hours a month depending on the source.

Realistically that means you can stream both audio and video for several hours each day, as well as browsing the web and using social networks exclusively on mobile data, and are still likely to have some going spare at the end of the month.

Need even more data? Then you'll want an unlimited data plan so you can browse without limits. We've created a helpful data calculator so you can find out exactly how much data you need. Simply use the sliders to select how much of each activity you undertake and your total monthly data use will be calculated automatically. Web browsing tends to be fairly light on your allowance, with each page you view averaging around 1MB of data. That said, social media can use more, with Facebook for example often using around 2MB per minute.

That said, different social media services will use different amounts of data. The biggest bottleneck in home connectivity can be your internet connection, as we add more uses for it — like Netflix, sports streaming, gaming and a myriad of smart home devices — we need faster connections with more data capacity. Internet speed is one of the biggest considerations when choosing a broadband plan. The speed of your internet connection is a critical factor when choosing a broadband plan.

The more things we do over the internet, the faster your connection needs to be to process the increase in data from those online activities. Having a basic understanding of your data use will help you identify if the speed of your connection is up to the task. Here are some of the most common online activities, and the data they use:. If you live in a large household and use the internet for most activities, opt for a fully unlimited broadband package to give you peace of mind.

Most broadband providers now offer unlimited broadband packages as standard but satellite broadband and mobile broadband packages tend to still have data limits. It only takes a few minutes to find a cheaper deal and start saving. What is a broadband data limit? Broadband data is used every time you go online using a modem or router.