Due to the pandemic, people have become habitual to the work from home culture and video conferences. Services like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Skype, Slack, and Google Hangouts have been some of the most popular video calling platforms used by work organizations and schools. But, have you ever wondered which one’s the most efficient when it comes to data usage? Well, in this article, let’s have a look at how much data is consumed by Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Hangouts.
Data Consumed for 1-Hour of Video Conferencing on Video Calling Platforms.
If you rely on mobile data for group video calls, your daily data limit may get used up pretty quickly. This is because video conference eats a lot of data. Therefore, below we’ve shared information about how much data is consumed for 1-hour video conferencing by Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, MS Teams, Slack, and Hangouts.
Before we begin, note that these are rough estimations. The actual data consumption may vary based on:
- The quality of the video.
- The number of people streaming their videos.
- The number of people you are looking at.
- If you’re streaming your own video.
1. Zoom
For one-on-one video calls, Zoom uses about 540MB per hour for standard high-quality. The consumption increases to 1.08GB per hour for 720p quality and about 1.62GB per hour for 1080p streaming.
The data usage increases significantly when you’re on group video calls. Zoom eats 810MB per hour, 1.35GB per hour, and 2.4GB per hour, for standard, 720p, and 1080p quality group conference calls, respectively.
Mobile users will likely consume slightly lesser data as Zoom will optimize its bandwidth based on your connection.
Related | 10 Tips to Use Zoom With Slow Internet Speeds
2. Google Meet
Google Meet is one of the most widely used video conference services by schools and colleges. If you’re a student, you may be wondering how much data is consumed by Google Meet for 1 hour of the video conference.
Well, Meet’s average bandwidth per participant is 3.2Mbps inbound and 1.8Mbps outbound. This translates to data consumption of about 2.25GB per hour in high quality.
By default, Meet automatically tweaks the inbound and outbound bandwidths based on the connection. This results in varying data consumption rates. Anyway, it uses very little data on the mobile version- in our usage, it was roughly 500MB per hour.
Related | Trick to Reduce Mobile Data Usage in Google Meet
3. Skype
In one-on-one video calls, Skype uses only about 135MB of data per hour on standard quality. The consumption will increase to up to 240MB per hour and 720MP per hour for high-quality and HD streams, respectively.
If you’re on a group video call with 3 people, Skype will consume up to 900MB of data per hour. It’ll take 1.8GB per hour for 5 people and 3.6GB per hour for 7 people in the conference.
4. Microsoft Teams
According to Microsoft, Teams is quite conservative on bandwidth utilization and can deliver HD video quality under 1.2Mbps. It roughly uses about 225MB of data per hour for group video calling. In the case of HD group video calling with 540p videos on a 1080p screen, Teams will consume about 450MB of data per hour.
If bandwidth isn’t limited, Teams optimizes media quality, including up to 1080p video resolution, up to 30fps for video and 15fps for content, and high-fidelity audio. This increases consumption significantly.
5. Slack
Slack is another popular platform used for business communication and project management. For one-on-one video calls, it consumes about 540MB per hour. For video calling with 3 people, the consumption is about 810MB an hour. At the same time, calls with 5 and more participants need about 1.2GB+ of data per hour.
Related | Skype vs. Zoom: Which is the right video chat app for WFM?
6. Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts consumes about 1.4GB of data per hour for five inbound participants. For 10+ inbound participants, it’ll take about 1.8GB of data per hour. Your outbound consumption stays at around 1.4GB an hour.
How to Estimate the Data Usage?
You can measure the data usage of a video calling platform by looking at the bandwidth numbers. Just add the inbound and outbound bandwidth and multiple by how long the conference call will continue to get an estimate of data usage.
Do note that bandwidth is usually mentioned in Mbps (Megabits). You’ll need to divide this number by 8 to convert it to MBps (Megabytes), which is how mobile data is calculated. Again, this will only give you estimates- actual consumption will vary with other factors.
Wrapping Up
These were estimations for data consumption in 1-hour video conference by Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Hangouts. Besides, we’ve also mentioned how you can figure out the data consumption by reading the bandwidth numbers. Anyway, which of the video calling platforms do you use? Do let us know in the comments below.
Also, read- Mega Comparison: Zoom vs. Skype vs. Microsoft Teams vs. Google Meet vs. Google Duo vs. Messenger Rooms
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