How much data does streaming a Live TV use?

In one of my recent posts about alternatives to DSTV, I mentioned Internet tv as one of the options and this basically refers to watching satellite tv on the internet using a streaming platform.

One of my favourite streaming platforms for watching internet tv is Streema as they have a very wide pool on internet tv channels that one can watch for free using a computer and an internet service. I've watched local channels such as NTA News 24 and Channels using Streema. I've also watched news channels like BBC world and Aljazeera and it all showed right on my desktop.

One thing about watching live tv is that it tends to use a lot of data than ordinary web browsing. Checking your email, reading published news on the web or even chatting on social media doesn't use as much data as live tv streaming but the good thing is that you can do it from anywhere you are even when there are no tv signals but you still have an internet connection.

The question then remains as to how much data live tv streaming uses when you watch it.

Well, I did an experiment and found out that there is really no standard value as a result of factors which tend to vary.

My Experiment
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I did an experiment to try to determine how much internet data will be used for live TV streaming if I used it for just 5 mins using an Android mobile phone's internet service by Wifi tethering.

I first checked my data usage on my android phone to write down the data usage under tethering. I also wrote down the start time.

I later connected my laptop to my phone internet using Wifi and then watched BBC on Streema for just 5 mins. Afterwards, I checked the data usage and found out that I've used up to 10 MB in just 5 minutes. Now that means if I watched BBC internet tv for about 1 hr, I would use up to 120MB.

I also tried out other stations like Channels TV on streema but it was a bit more costly as I used up to 50MB in 5 minutes.

I did a third trial with an Android mobile TV app to watch CNN and it was about the same time but also noted that there were a lot of adverts which ultimately added to the data usage.

You can also do an experiment yourself to find out how much data live tv streaming will use on your device.

Factors that influence data usage during live tv streaming
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- Video quality: The lower the quality, the less data it uses
- Channel: Different channels tend to use different amounts of data.
- Screen size: The bigger the screen size, the more data it's likely to use
- Adverts: The more adverts that are used on the streaming platform, the more data you are likely to consume.
- Platform: The platform through which the live tv is being streamed also affects how much data that will be used. Mobile live tv apps tend to use less data than web browsers.

My advice: Just get an internet service that comes with unlimited data if you really want to enjoy internet tv else your bills could be high