Most people are on a tight daily mobile data limit and zoom meetings exhaust their data quickly. It leaves a lot of people wondering how much data does a zoom meeting use? In this article, we will try to understand how much data does a zoom a meeting use and some methods to reduce the data usage. Also, Read: Top 5 Best Zoom Alternatives for Video Calling
How Much Data Does a Zoom Meeting Use?
Let’s first understand what the official Zoom site says regarding the required bandwidth for Zoom meetings. Here is the data from the official Zoom site: Recommended bandwidth for meetings and webinar panelists: For 1:1 video calling:
For high-quality video: 600kbps (up/down)For 720p HD video: 1.2Mbps (up/down)For 1080p HD video: 3.8Mbps/3.0Mbps (up/down)
For group video calling:
For high-quality video: 1.0 Mbps/600kbps (up/down)For 720p HD video: 2.6Mbps/1.8Mbps (up/down)For 1080p HD video: 3.8Mbps/3.0Mbps (up/down)For gallery view receiving: 2.0Mbps (25 views), 4.0Mbps (49 views)
For screen sharing only (no video thumbnail): 50-75kbpsFor screen sharing with video thumbnail: 50-150kbpsFor audio VoiP: 60-80kbpsFor Zoom Phone: 60-100kbps
Recommended bandwidth for webinar attendees: For panelists video on:
~600kbps (down) for high-quality video~1.2-1.8Mbps (down) for 720p HD video ~2-3Mbps (down) for 1080p HD video
For screen sharing only (no video thumbnail): 50-75kbps (down)For screen sharing with video thumbnail: 50-150kbps (down)For audio VoiP: 60-80kbps (down)
For your context, typically the normal daily mobile data plan in India offers 1.5GB of data bandwidth per day. 1GB= 1024MB 1MB= 1024KB Now, let’s see how much data does a Zoom meeting use:
Data Usage for a 1:1 Meeting
Depending on the streaming quality, you can use anywhere about 540MB to 1.62GB of data per hour on a zoom call. This means you can use 9-27MB of data per minute.
Data Usage for a Group Call
Depending on the streaming quality, you can use anywhere from 810MB to 2.4GB of data per hour on a zoom group call. This means you can use 13.5-40MB of data per minute. If you look at it, it is a lot of data consumed per minute. Even if you have a single lecture of an hour on Zoom, you can exhaust your daily data limit easily. To help you understand more, here is how much data other internet activities consume:
How to Reduce Data Consumption on Zoom?
Turn Off ‘Enable HD’ Feature
Interestingly, you can almost halve the data usage on Zoom meetings by simply disabling this feature. All you have to do is just turn off the ‘Enable HD’ feature on your Zoom. Here is how:
Click on the tiny arrow facing upwards just adjacent to the ‘Start Video’ button on the bottom right.Now click on ‘Video Settings…’. Here, uncheck the boxes for ‘Enable HD’ and ‘Touch up my appearance’.
That’s it!
Turn Off Video Unless Necessary
An audio call uses just about 27MB of data per hour so it is just better to talk on audio mode unless something is really important. Apart from the person holding the meeting, most users are just there to listen and that is why they should disable their video mode. Here is how:
Just simply tap on the ‘Start Video’ button. You will now see a red line cutting the icon.
Once this happens, your video will be off.
Only Screen Share When Necessary
Do not share the screen until it is super necessary. You can use other platforms like Google Docs to create and edit a document with multiple users. This will save a lot of your data.
Conclusion – How Much Data Does a Zoom Meeting Use?
So that was all about how much data does a Zoom meeting use and it is quite a lot. I hope the tips to save data on a Zoom meeting help you to save your daily data. Also, Read: Is JioMeet Better Than Zoom or Just a Clone?
