# How much bandwidth will streaming audio take up? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 3, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-bandwidth-will-streaming-audio-take-up/549070 "2010-08-03T23:07:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-bandwidth-will-streaming-audio-take-up/549070/1 "2010-08-03T23:07:49Z")
I have a new iPhone, and I need to be careful with my memory. I’d love to be able to stream radio, but I’m concerned about the amount of my 2GB limit it will use up. If a station is streaming at 64 kbps how long will it take to consume 50 MB? ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-bandwidth-will-streaming-audio-take-up/549070/2 "2010-08-03T23:17:08Z")
Is that binary megabytes or decimal megabytes? Assuming decimal megabytes, 50MB is a little less than 1 hour, 45 minutes of audio at 64 kbps. ETA: If it’s binary megabytes then it’s about 1 hour, 49 minutes. ETA2: Oh, that’s not taking into account protocol overhead, though. Anybody have any idea how much overhead one would see on streaming audio? I’m not even sure what the average packet size would be. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-bandwidth-will-streaming-audio-take-up/549070/3 "2010-08-03T23:28:35Z")
[Here](http://www.att.com/standalone/data-calculator/index.html)’s a link to an online calculator to help you estimate bandwidth usage. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-bandwidth-will-streaming-audio-take-up/549070/4 "2010-08-04T00:39:32Z")
It’s official then. The biggest problem with the iPhone is AT&T. 200 GB is not enough. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-bandwidth-will-streaming-audio-take-up/549070/5 "2010-08-04T00:57:23Z")
That’s 200MB, or 2GB. And note that anything you download via WiFi doesn’t count against those quotas. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-bandwidth-will-streaming-audio-take-up/549070/6 "2010-08-04T01:05:47Z")
My mistake, it’s 2 GB. Since I live rural, my phone is my Internet. Thus, no WiFi. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-bandwidth-will-streaming-audio-take-up/549070/7 "2010-08-04T03:28:30Z")
Why are you only wanting 50 MB? That’s 2.5% of your 2GB total. I’m thinking you were off by a factor of 10\*. That would give you 17 hours and 21 minutes (and 40 seconds) for one quarter of your bandwidth. Overhead will shorten that, of course. \*since 1GB = 100 **0** MB (When dealing with bandwidth, everyone uses decimal nowadays.) ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-bandwidth-will-streaming-audio-take-up/549070/8 "2010-08-04T03:53:56Z")
It’s close enough that I can’t just listen without care. I still need to leave bandwidth for other activities. I could easily listen to two hours a day if I take into account driving, and Saturday shows that don’t air here. I picked 50 because it was in the range I think I should stay near to be certain I don’t eat up the bandwidth I need. It is also a nice scaleable unit as 20 = 1 GB.