Why you need unlimited internet data plan for watching Netflix in Nigeria

If you are planning to subscribe to Neftlix in Nigeria, one of the things that can really minimize the cost of doing so is if you have an unlimited internet data service that comes at a fixed monthly price.

The cost of subscribing to Netflix in Nigeria is really cheap and affordable to many Nigerians but what makes it really more expensive is the cost of internet service. As at today, the average cost of 1GB of data in Nigeria is about N1000 and if you were to use Netflix extensively for a month, you could use up to 50GB per month or more. A full HD movie that you can watch on a Smart TV and lasts up to 3 hrs can use up to 3GB of data and if you were to watch a single movie everyday, you could use up to 60GB in 20 day and that's already N60,000 on your bill.

So, Netflix in Nigeria is not exaclty expensive if you have access to fixed cost internet service that doesn't have any data caps but when you start paying for data on a variable rate such as more ISPs do in Nigeria, then you'd be paying more just to watch NetFlix. It would have been much cheaper to just go see a movie at Silverbird or Ozone cinemas for under N2k because watching a Netflix video could cost much as N3,000 per movie.

The subscription to have access to full HD videos on Netflix is about N2500 per month and that's not what a lot of Nigerians would really bother about but they are more concerned about how much of their internet data it would use up.

Apart from having an unlimited data internet service or just having up to 100GB of data per month, a Netflix user in Nigeria also needs to have a fast internet service and there are only few ISPs that can offer that.

How much does an unlimited data service cost in Nigeria?
Well, MTN Hynet internet service has an unlimited data plan for 30 days that costs N52,700 for 10 Mbps and 35000 for 5 Mbps. Smile has an unlimited data plan they sell for N19800 at a speed of about 5 Mbps. iPNX offers an unlimited plan for N60,000 a month while Wifi.com.ng has a residential and unlimited plan for N9500 but their coverage area is only at few places in Lagos such as Lekki, Ikeja, Ikoyi and Yaba.

How much internet speed is required to watch Netflix? You need at least 0.5 Mbps to 25 Mbps to stream movies depending on whether they are low quality or Ultra HD movie. You need at least 5 Mbps if you want to enjoy watching HD movies on your Smart TV and can stream it on your tablet or mobile phone with less speed.

You can still watch Netflix in Nigeria even if you are using a GSM mobile phone and subscribe to a mobile or limited data plan but it would cost you more money if you do watch a lot of movies from Netflix. If you were to watch just 5 videos per month, it may not be significant but it goes higher when you start watching up to 15 to 20 videos per month and didn't use an unlimited data plan because they come at a fixed cost unlike a limited data plan that expires and requires a renewal once you reach the limit.