How much data does Sky Stream consume per month?

[Exiled-in-HH]

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@Skull+Treaty wrote:

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@Exiled-in-HH wrote:

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@Skull+Treaty wrote:

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@Nigelb1972 wrote:

@Exiled-in-HH ahh I thought I'd made a booboo but I see what ya mean now. I thought his numbers looked off but I've had a few vodka and tonics because it's Saturday 🤣

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@Nigelb1972 
Vodka aside, the main difference isn't the capital M...but the B. Mbps is the same as mbps; MBps (commonly shown as MB/s) is different 🙂

Most people reading your post would have known what you were meaning

👍🏻 

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B and b is only a multiple of eight... while M and m is a multiple of a million😂🤣😂

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M is mega; while m is...wait for it...mega. B is byte, b is bit

Mbps

Stands for megabits per second.

MBps

Stands for megabytes per second.

The key difference between the two is that there are eight bits in every byte, so 1 MBps is equal to 8 Mbps.

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If only😂🤣😂

[Stickinfohere]

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@Exiled-in-HH wrote:

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If only😂🤣😂

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The reply of someone with their tail between their legs and cant admit they were wrong😂🤣😂

[Stickinfohere]

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@Exiled-in-HH wrote:

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B and b is only a multiple of eight... while M and m is a multiple of a million😂🤣😂

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Never heard of such poppycock, multiple of a million indeed. 😂🤣😂

[Stickinfohere]

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@Exiled-in-HH wrote:

In all cases the difference between mbps and Mbps is very significant😉

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Haha, by a million some would incorrectly advise 

[Exiled-in-HH]

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@Stickinfohere wrote:

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@Exiled-in-HH wrote:

In all cases the difference between mbps and Mbps is very significant😉

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Haha, by a million some would incorrectly advise 

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Well mbps don't exist while Mbps is a million  times something that does exist 😂🤣😂

[Floydianslip]

@Skull+Treaty 

My ISP is IDnet and they provide daily consumption and monthly via their customer portal. I have 4 pucks and whilst they aren't all used at the same time I used 3.2 Tbps in September and I'm predicted to use around the same this month.

Sky Stream is bandwidth hungry especially if you watch a lot of UHD/HDR content, pleased nearly all ISP's are unlimited😬

[Skull+Treaty]

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@Floydianslip wrote:

@Skull+Treaty 

My ISP is IDnet and they provide daily consumption and monthly via their customer portal. I have 4 pucks and whilst they aren't all used at the same time I used 3.2 Tbps in September and I'm predicted to use around the same this month.

Sky Stream is bandwidth hungary especially if you watch a lot of UHD/HDR content, pleased nearly all ISP's are unlimited😬

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@Floydianslip 
Do they break it down by each device, that would be handy for an ISP to do.

I use other connected devices that consume a lot of traffic and didn't include those in my post, just the Stream usage 👍🏻

[Floydianslip]

@Skull+Treaty 

Sadly no, not each device, but it would be useful if they did. Here's a pic of my monthly consumption since March this year.

[lettice]

Sky Broadband shows the same type of monthly usage chart, not device linked though.

To see it, run a Service check and a do a test on your broadband and click on Data usage.

It normal keeps about the last nine months.

My monthly average over the last nine months averages  2049GB

Thinking back to  when I got Sky Stream in February this year,  thinking it's added about 500-700GB a month, from what I recall previously my Data Usage was reporting.

Not really seeing anything else in my household that has changed since then.

[CorinT]

I can see traffic graphs on my router per device.

Sky Stream channels in HD will use around 5-10 megabits, but seem to hover around 8 megabits per second on average. 8 bits in a byte, so 1 megabyte per second.

UHD / 4k is more like 20-30mbit; for easy maths let's suppose it's 24mbit (it does seem more variable, though); 3 megabytes per second.

I'd imagine that Sky don't want you to have one Stream box being right on the knife-edge of what's possible; otherwise other users in the house (kids upstairs watching Youtube, or a large app update on your phone) could cause stuttering and buffering. So the minimum speeds are probably written with plenty of headroom in mind. Plus maybe there might be a briefly higher bitrate for a confetti cannon.

So if you're watching 4 hours a day of HD content, that's 4 x 60 x 60 x 1 megabytes in a day, which is 14.4GB a day. 446GB a month, or half of your usage allowance,.

If you're watching the same 4 hours daily in UHD, we can multiply that amount by 3 to give circa 1.4TB - over your monthly usage for the household, without a single other device doing anything else!

You might want to speak to your wireless ISP and ask them what the rules are for going over the usage limit; does your connection just get a lower priority (if so, you might just see how bad that becomes - maybe it's perfectly usable still), or do you get charged an overage fee (less good).

It's worth noting that each streaming video provider will make different choices about the bitrate to use for each video. So while these numbers hold true for watching live channels, and the Sky Cinema on demand stuff, the bitrates (and data used) will likely differ for Netflix, Disney+, Youtube, Twitch, etc. Some of those video providers might crush HD down to a lower bitrate; it'll look sharp if nothing's moving much, but become a blocky, smeary mess if anything much goes on. Other providers use a higher bitrate, at the expense of using more data (as per the above), needing more capacity at the CDN layer, and the provider needing more storage if you're not streaming live video (if you work at Google and can shave off 10% of the size of each video, that'd add up rapidly!). Have a look at this video which highlights the choices being made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Rp-uo6HmI

[gerdav]

As @lettice pointied out about only a 500-700gb increase a month, a lot will depend on your current viewing habits, if the majority of your tv watching is already Sky on demand/catchup along with the streaming apps Netflix/Prime etc it's only actually live broadcast tv and recordings you would have had from them that are really a increase, in my case it's 95% live sport that's the increase in data usage as pretty much everything else was already being consumed via the broadband connection in the household. 

[macnfun]

Thanks for the answers all,

Tracking the usage, in 5 days 127 GB has been used, so about 765 GB expected to be used over 30 days, probably more. I think the speed will get throttled if the cap is breached, but I can buy a booster of 100GB for a tenner, so we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'll just make sure people turn off the puck if they're not watching it!

[MarkGoldsmith]

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@macnfun wrote:

Thanks for the answers all,

Tracking the usage, in 5 days 127 GB has been used, so about 765 GB expected to be used over 30 days, probably more. I think the speed will get throttled if the cap is breached, but I can buy a booster of 100GB for a tenner, so we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'll just make sure people turn off the puck if they're not watching it!

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It will auto shutoff after 10 mins of being idle anyway.