Verizon Data Calculator Short-changes Audio Streaming

Apr 3, 2012 10:41 AM, By Doug Irwin, CPBE DRB

Mar 30, 2012 – There has been much ado in the technical media as of late regarding the mobile phone data plans for both AT&T and Verizon, and how the data flow of certain super users is being throttled after they reach their monthly limits. Just how difficult is it to reach that limit though? Can you reach it by simply streaming audio? Now you can have a look for yourself — at least with respect to Verizon — by going to its data usage calculator.

I’m not impressed with the estimation of data used for audio streaming though; the data rate would only be 16.6Kb/s, which is only one half, and possibly only one third, of what would be typical for smartphone applications. Using a 32kb/s stream for one hour per day, for 30 days per month, uses about 3.5GB of data.