![]() That’s mostly because you’re uploading quite a bit, which you don’t typically have to do with Netflix or YouTube. ![]() Statements about what constitutes “a lot of data” don’t tend to age well, and a gigabyte definitely isn’t as big as it was a decade ago, but video calls are still fairly heavy on the bandwidth. ![]() Screensharing is the least data-intensive task you can do on a video call, typically taking up less than 200 Kbps (1.5 MB/s). Zoom handles group calls much more efficiently than Skype, though Skype apparently uses less bandwidth for 1:1 calls. If you want to conserve your Internet, knocking down the quality to the lowest setting is a good way to do so.Īdding extra people to the call also takes more data on the download side (you’re still just uploading one stream, after all), but how much extra depends on the app. The data difference between 360p standard definition and 1080p high definition is significant, though, with HD calls consuming two to four times as much bandwidth as SD calls. Pretty much every major video-chat application has quality settings ranging from “atrocious” to “pretty clear,” and many of them employ algorithms that automatically adjust the quality based on your device and connection. Megabits per secondĬonverting the Mbps you find in an app’s bandwidth recommendations to megabytes per hour will give you a general idea of how much data you’re likely to use in a video call, but not all calls are created equal. To convert to hours, multiply by 60 again. To convert it into the more-usable minute unit of time, just multiply by 60. That means if you see a number in Mbps, you can just divide it by 8 to get the equivalent MB/s. Note: I’m using Mbps for megabits per second and MB/s for megabytes per second, just to differentiate them more easily. Luckily, the math to convert between the two isn’t too complex. If you go on a video-chat app’s website, they generally measure bandwidth requirements in megabits per second, which isn’t that useful, given that we’re more concerned with how many megabytes we’re using over a series of minutes. However, I do think it’s important to note that the upload bandwidth here was nearly double that of the download bandwidth for the entire duration of the call.Īlthough I needed virtually zero bandwidth to complete my call with Google Meet, Google provides substantially higher minimum bandwidth requirements via its support page. In fact, my call only required an average of 32.17 Kbps down and 60.22 Kbps up. Google Meet has by far the lowest bandwidth requirements out of the four video conferencing platforms I used. I had an iPhone user send me a FaceTime request, then measured the bandwidith in the same way I did with the other platforms. However, you can FaceTime with someone on your PC if they send you a chat link. FaceTime Bandwidth UsageĪs you may already know, FaceTime is a video platform that is specific to Apple. You can see Skype’s bandwidth suggestions (which were gathered directly from its support page) below: Definitionīy these numbers, Skype adds much extra data when more people join, but for 1:1 conversations, it’s pretty lightweight, based on my experience. In fact, the average bandwidth requirements for Skype were right around the 100 Kbps range, with mine resting at 105.23 Kbps down and 104 Kbps up.Īlthough it surprised me, this aligns with the differences in bandwidth requirements between the two video call clients. Overall, Skype seemed to use slightly less bandwidth despite using all the same settings and resolutions as I did with Zoom. During that time, I experienced the following in terms of bandwidth usage. Just as with Zoom, I conducted a simple video call via PC using Skype. Furthermore, Zoom says that in thumbnail mode, your download data usage will automatically drop to reflect the resolution you’re receiving. Definitionįor group calls, the recommendations change slightly: DefinitionĪccording to Zoom, your bandwidth usage will be optimized based on each participant’s network. While these numbers are fairly low, the Zoom support page provides these bandwidth recommendations for 1:1 video calls, as of February 2022. This is fairly low, considering my Internet connection can provide about 100 times that, and the average Wi-Fi network is capable of at least 25 Mbps. As you can see, though, my average bandwidth usage was much lower, with 133.74 Kbps up and 171.65 Kbps down. At the peak, I needed only 373.68 Kbps for download and 313.45 Kbps for upload. ![]()
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