How much data (MB) does Skype consume in a 1 minute call?

06
2014-04
  • Fsaladin

    How much data (in megabytes) does Skype consume in a 1 minute audio call? And how much data does Skype consume in a 1 minute video call? Is it fixed or does it vary with the mobile version or PC version of Skype?

  • Answers
  • S2333

    As Gaurav Joseph has said you can monitor this through the resource monitor or using another network monitoring tool to obtain your usage.

    As an approximate guide Skype says the following are examples of typical data usage.

    • Skype-to-Skype calls: 50kbps or around 3MB for one minute of calling
    • Calls to mobile numbers or landlines: 6-20 kbps or around 1MB for one minute of calling
    • Video calls between two mobile phone devices: 500kbps
    • Video calls between a mobile phone and a computer: 600kbps

    How much data will Skype use on my mobile phone?

    If you take these figures you are looking at approximately 30 MB for a video call between two mobile devices for 1 minute.

    Skype also recommends different bandwidth requirements for different situations.

    How much bandwidth does Skype need?

    HD video calling has a recommended upload and download speed of 1.5Mbps both ways so you are looking at about 180MB per minute.

    To answer your last question as Skype is a peer to peer application and will try to make the best use of the bandwidth it has available so the rate is variable and not fixed.

  • Gaurav Joseph

    You can use the resource monitor to check it out in windows. The data may vary on versions of skype due to compression algorithms and other factors.

  • Vitas

    You can also use sysinternals process explorer to monitor skype.exe. In "disk and network" tab it shows you exact speed and number of bytes transfered over network.


  • Related Question

    How to screen share in skype 5.0 without webcam?
  • kevyn

    I used to use the share screen feature in skype to support people and or show people how to do things...

    I've upgraded to version 5.0 for PC, and I can no longer find the screen share option!

    Apparently you can use video call to share your screen, however when I press on that it tells me I don't have a webcam.

    Do skype 5.0 users need to buy a webcam in order to screen share like they could in previous versions?


  • Related Answers
  • GabLeRoux

    Try starting a call first (not a group one) and you should see Call Sharing on the dark side of the screen as told here: http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=622763

    It seems to be a bug with video devices in beta versions of skype 5, are you using a stable release?