Tracking how much data does working from home use is vital because your whole month's work plan depends on it.
On average, a person requires 8 to 20GB of data per month to work from home. It completely depends on the usage, such as type of work, duration of work, and device on which you work.
In this article, we have mentioned all the estimations and calculations that will help you choose a suitable data plan or get a certain range of internet bandwidth.
How Much Data Does Working From Home Use? - Let's Explore
The typical data range required to work from home can vary between 8 to 10 or 20 GB, but many exceptions exist. You may need less or more than average data to work peacefully without facing connectivity or data expiring issues.
You will need 2 to 5 GB of data daily if you are a data analyst. For video streaming or game streaming, more data is required. Here are some calculations based on research and tests to describe data amount requirements:
Is 10 GB to 20 GB Enough to Work From Home?
For one or two persons, 10 to 20 GB of data is sufficient for the following purposes:
- Surfing for 500 to 800 hours
- Video Conferences for 32 to 40 hours
- Video streaming for 80 to 120 hours
- 5,000 to 9,000 emails
- Gaming for 500 hours
Is 50 GB Enough to Work From Home?
50 GB of internet data is more than enough for 3 to 4 persons for the following uses:
- Internet browsing for 2500 hours
- Video conferencing for 300 hours
- Video Streaming for 100 hours
- Audio streaming for 600 hours
- 20,000 emails
Is 100 GB Per Month of Data Enough to Work From Home?
More than four persons can work for a whole month with 100 GB of internet data for the following uses:
- Internet browsing for 4800 hours
- Video conferencing for 320 hours
- Video Streaming for 200 hours
- Audio streaming for 1200 hours
- 40,000 emails
- Gaming 2560 hours
Is 200 GB Data Enough to Work From Home?
If you need unlimited data for work and entertainment, 200 GB will fulfill the needs of your entire home. This is what you can do with this bulk of internet data:
- Internet browsing for 2400 to 4800 hours
- Video conferencing for 600 hours
- Video Streaming for 200 hours
- Audio streaming for 1200 hours
- 40,000 emails
- Gaming 5120 hours
How Much Data Does An Average Person Use Per Month For Work?
To fulfill the basic work needs, 10 to 20 GB of data is sufficient for browsing, downloading, video and audio meetings, streaming, and sending emails. You will need only 1 to 2 GB of data daily if you are a freelance writer.
Data Spent on Downloading/Browsing
Whether downloading work files, videos, and images or sharing files with clients or colleagues in bulk, you will need a good data plan with excellent internet speed. It is tough to estimate the exact figure, but considering the following factors, you can find the final plan.
- 4 MB for downloading a single audio file
- 2 MB for uploading and 8 Mb for downloading
- Social media 150 to 350 MB per hour
- Gaming 100 MB per hour
Audio/Video Streaming
Audio and video streaming are somewhat related to each other. However, the data consumption for the audio stream is less than for video, and the data doesn’t count if audio is running in a video.
For Spotify and other audio applications, additional data is consumed. Usually, 115 MB is enough for one hour of audio streaming and 1 GB for 8 hours. For 20 working days, 20 GB of data is enough.
Video and gaming streamers are becoming popular and flourishing when working from home. In low resolution, fewer data will consume, but it will compromise the video quality.
For 1 hour of video streaming, 2 to 3 GB of data is good, and 5 to 10 GB is required for one day of work. So, for 20 working days, 200 GB of data is best to stream HD content.
Web Browsing
Web browsing or surfing is done on smartphones or laptops to access multiple websites for searching required information. The data amount depends on the number of sites you opened and the pictures or videos you loaded on social media.
Usually, 1 MB is used while browsing a single web-page. So if you are opening 100 web-pages with quick internet speed, 100 MB of data will be consumed.
For watching a YouTube video of 1 hour in 720 p resolution, your data charges will be 870 MB. You must have more than 1 GB of data for one day of surfing.
Conferences & Meetings
Most internet data is spent attending video and audio conferences and meetings. However, not all applications consume the same amount of data. The essential thing to notice here isn’t the data but the internet speed required to stay connected to the office when working from home.
Zoom video conference between 2 participants: 600 kbps upload and download speed for 480 p to 3 Mbps for 1080 p resolution is required.
Zoom video calling for a group meeting: 1 Mbps for 480 p to 3.8 Mbps for 1080p video quality.
Google Meet: 1.2 to 3.8 Mbps upload and download speed is necessary.
Slack video calling: 600 kbps to 2 Mbps speed is enough.
Skype video conference: 128 kbps to 8 Mbps download and upload speed will be sufficient.
How Much Internet Bandwidth Is Required For Work From Home
Suppose you are doing more than one activity while working from home, such as listening to music on Spotify while attending a video conference and browsing multiple web pages. In that case, a good internet bandwidth will work best for these simultaneous purposes.
After calculations, it has been estimated that 25 Mbps data speed is good enough to meet all needs. However, you can also go for 50 Mbps, but rushing to 100 Mbps of speed isn’t required for remote work.
Here are some minor details of internet bandwidth best for working from home:
- Downloading 300 Mb or Large File in 1.45 minutes: 25 Mbps
- Downloading 5 Mb File in 1 second: 25 Mbps
- Browsing: 16 Mbps
- Zoom: 1 Mbps
- Google Meet: 1.8 Mbps
- Emails: 1 Mbps
Conclusion
The remote work trend is rising gradually, and data consumption to accomplish tasks is also increasing rapidly. But estimating how much data does working from home use can be tricky, but for your ease, we have summarized even the slightest details in this guide.
If you can buy bulk data at cheap rates, go for it. However, a minimum of 1 to 2 GB of data per day is enough to work remotely.
Related Posts
