Wondering how much data do you need?
Get your answer in 30 seconds here
1.Where are you heading to?
Data usage - helpful information and tips
GB is short for Gigabyte - and is equivalent to 1024 megabytes (MB) or 1,048,576 kilobytes (KB).
As a rough guide, 1GB of data would let you do one of the following:
- Watch 1 hour and 20 minutes of video at Standard Definition
- Stream roughly eight hours of high quality music (320kbps)
- Send or receive about 1000 emails
- Send over 1.5 million WhatsApp messages (without pictures or video)
The amount of data used to stream a movie will depend on the length of the film and how high you want the picture quality to be. Netflix say that viewing in High Definition (HD) uses 3GB per hour, while Standard Definition (SD) uses 0.7GB per hour.
With some modern films (such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi) lasting as long as two and a half hours that means, even at SD, it would take over 2GB of data to watch the whole movie.
Don't forget though, if you're using Netflix or iTunes, you can always download a movie or an episode on Wi-Fi to watch later - this won't count towards your mobile data usage.
Streaming music uses surprisingly little data - but it does add up. On Spotify or TIDAL, 'High Quality' is set to 320kbps. That's just over 115MB per hour, which works out at about 1GB over eight hours.
On some music streaming apps (including Spotify and TIDAL) you have the option to listen offline. Simply download the albums or playlists you most listen to when you're connected to Wi-Fi and you can enjoy your favorite sounds without using up your monthly mobile data allowance.
If you can't find what you're looking for in our Data Calculator, it's probably because it doesn't use a significant amount of data.
Using Siri, or Google assistant, for example uses very little data. Using Google maps or Maps uses very little too. This is because once you've input the journey, your phone downloads the map you need and 'caches' the information.
So if you can't see it on the list - you probably don't need to worry about it.
Data top-up / add on is available for the majority of our plans, you can always purchase add on plans before you run out of your current data plan and before expiry.
Please note: As apps become more sophisticated and cameras create higher resolution images and video, it is likely that your data consumption will increase. Don't forget to factor that in when you are choosing your plan.