{"id":265485,"date":"2018-06-26T17:59:54","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T15:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=265485"},"modified":"2018-06-26T18:01:53","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T16:01:53","slug":"vodacom-vs-mtn-netflix-data-usage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/265485-vodacom-vs-mtn-netflix-data-usage.html","title":{"rendered":"Vodacom vs MTN &#8211; Netflix data usage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Netflix optimises its Android and iOS apps for mobile viewing in an effort to save mobile data consumption.<\/p>\n<p>It accomplishes this by dynamically altering its content\u2019s bit rate, depending on the motion in each segment of a video.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/253409-how-much-data-netflix-uses-on-your-smartphone.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>previous tests<\/strong><\/a>, we found that Netflix consumes around 5.3GB of data over 26 hours of mobile streaming, or around 3.42MB per minute.<\/p>\n<p>This test was conducted using a mobile data connection on a prepaid SIM \u2013 but only a single mobile operator was tested.<\/p>\n<p>To determine whether there is a difference in Netflix data consumption when using different mobile networks, we tested Netflix&#8217;s mobile data usage on Vodacom and MTN SIMs.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Mobile data test<\/h3>\n<p>For the test, a Vodacom and MTN SIM were each placed in two Nokia 5 smartphones and all background applications were disabled.<\/p>\n<p>Both devices were set up in the same configuration, with a screen resolution of 1,280 x 720 and an LTE connection.<\/p>\n<p>We then started Netflix on the smartphones and monitored the data usage between episodes to see if there was a notable difference between the two networks.<\/p>\n<p>Data usage was monitored using the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mydatamanagerapp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MyDataManager app<\/a><\/strong> for Android, which delivers data consumption readouts for applications.<\/p>\n<p>The Netflix account used for the test was set to automatically adjust streaming quality, and a speed test was conducted before streaming content to determine the devices&#8217; connection quality.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=eu.vspeed.mybroadband&amp;hl=en_ZA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>MyBroadband Speed Test app<\/strong><\/a> was used for the speed measurements.<\/p>\n<p>At the time the Netflix test started, the devices scored the following speed test results:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vodacom<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Download &#8211; <strong>16.27Mbps<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Upload &#8211; <strong>8.05Mbps<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>MTN<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Download &#8211; <strong>24.43Mbps<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Upload &#8211; <strong>20.99Mbps<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After running the speed tests, we played the first two episodes of The Expanse on Netflix, measuring the data usage for each episode.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/The-Expanse.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-254741\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/The-Expanse.jpg\" alt=\"The Expanse\" width=\"640\" height=\"430\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/The-Expanse.jpg 640w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/The-Expanse-300x202.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/The-Expanse-595x400.jpg 595w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Results<\/h3>\n<p>The streaming quality on both Nokia 5 smartphones during the test was clear and there was no buffering or skipping.<\/p>\n<p>Two episodes of The Expanse were played during the test, each with a runtime of over 40 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>A comparison of the data usage on the MTN and Vodacom SIMs for the two Netflix episodes is detailed in the table below.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mybb_table\">\n<div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\" style=\"width: 100%;\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"7\">\n<thead>\n<tr style=\"background-color: #003366; font-weight: bold; color: #fff;\">\n<th style=\"text-align: left;\">Data usage<\/th>\n<th style=\"text-align: left;\">Episode 1 (45m)<\/th>\n<th style=\"text-align: left;\">Episode 2 (43m)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"30%\"><strong>Vodacom<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"35%\">118MB<\/td>\n<td width=\"35%\">162MB<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>MTN<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>119MB<\/td>\n<td>162MB<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>While Netflix&#8217;s mobile app <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/255359-netflix-data-usage-test-mobile-vs-wi-fi.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">uses less data<\/a><\/strong> on mobile connections than when on Wi-Fi, it still consumes anything between and 2.62MB and 3.77MB per minute &#8211; according to the data from our tests.<\/p>\n<p>From the results, we can also conclude there is no significant difference in the data usage for Netflix across Vodacom and MTN.<\/p>\n<p>Video quality was the same across both devices, with no stuttering and a clear stream being displayed at all times.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/265127-how-much-south-africans-are-willing-to-pay-for-a-dstv-and-supersport-streaming-service.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">How much South Africans are willing to pay for a DStv and SuperSport streaming service<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We tested Netflix mobile data usage with Vodacom and MTN SIMs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341028,"featured_media":200194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[35,42,2054,41676,51823,41],"class_list":["post-265485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-netflix","tag-nokia-5","tag-the-expanse","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341028"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266109,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265485\/revisions\/266109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}