Google Hangout and Data Usage

[cory_c]

Hi,

A friend suggested we keep connected with a few others on Google Hangout. I'm a bit hesitant as I only have a $10 monthly plan plus 500 MB of Data (which I have only used once, for about two minutes). I figure we may spend up to a half hour talking.

I wonder if there are community members who can share their experience in the consumption of data along with Google Hangout?

Thanks.

[wetcoaster]

I'm with @srlawren  here: hangout is not widely used among the people I'm staying in touch with. And, of course, use WiFi for your VoIP calls whenever possible.

Recent real life numbers from my WhatsApp call log: 28:30 minutes of talk only call came to 7.5MB, 11 minutes of video call were 24.5MB. Both were good quality on the PM LTE light plan, my phone's "bars" were in mid range on LTE.

[cory_c]

Not sure why they chose it. But I appreciate all the time everyone has taken to respond to my question. I'm going to suggest to my friend that we find another way of keeping in touch.

[cory_c]

Thank you so much for this information.

[cory_c]

Very informative. I appreciate this.

Thanks.

[cory_c]

Thanks.

[srlawren]

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@cory_c wrote:

Hi,

A friend suggested we keep connected with a few others on Google Hangout. I'm a bit hesitant as I only have a $10 monthly plan plus 500 MB of Data (which I have only used once, for about two minutes). I figure we may spend up to a half hour talking.

I wonder if there are community members who can share their experience in the consumption of data along with Google Hangout?

Thanks.

---

@cory_c when you say "keep connected", are you talking about instant messages, voice calls, video calls, or something else?  All of the above use data in Hangouts.  Instant Messaging (other than if you're sending photos, GIFs, videos, etc via messaging) is very light-weight.  For voice and video calls yes you're going to use more data, and there is some info provided by the previous responses.

Did your friend choose Hangouts for a reason? I'm asking because Google is slowly sunsetting Hangouts for personal use like this.  Honestly all the features I talked about (instant messaging, in-app voice calls, in-app video calls) can all be done better with WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, or Skype (and dozens of other apps).  The advantage to using WhatsApp or FB Messenger (and even Skype) is that you can keep in touch with lots of friends/family/colleagues using these apps, where most likely Hangouts would just be used with that one friend (maybe a few more, potentially).  I have one friend in the US that messages me over Hangouts form time to time, but that's it.  The rest of my friends and family use the 3 apps I called out, except for a hand-ful of iPhone conacts that refuse to use anything but iMessage, so I just SMS text with them.

[will13am]

coryy_c, I use hangouts extensively for both text and voice chat.  From my experience, I would suggest budgeting around 1Mbyte/minute of talk. 

[RobertQc]

If its just voice

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/hangouts/nPJE6qjje4w

"For call usage:

Here are approximate values for data consumption of the most common codecs used for VoIP:

G.711 - 87Kbps
G.729 - 32 Kbps
G.723.1 - 22 Kbps
G.723.1 - 21 Kbps
G.726 – 55 Kbps
G.726 – 47 Kbps
G.728 - 32 Kbps

These values will give you matter for calculation. For example, for one minute of talk with the G.729 codec, we will do the following calculation:

G.729 takes 32 kilobits per second,

which is 1920 kilobits (60 x 32) in one minute,

which in turn is 240 kilobytes (KB) per minute (1 byte is 8 bits)

Now that’s only for the data going out. Inbound data (which also counts) takes the same load, so we double the figure to 480 KB.

Finally, we can round the value to 0.5 MB per minute of conversation.

The G.729 codec is one of the best performing voice codecs and most good VoIP services use it.

You should note that there are many parameters, that are rather technical in nature, affecting the values above. Among them are the size (payload) of the voice packets, the intervals at which they are sent and the number of packets sent in one second (frequency). For most of us, what we want is an approximation for an estimate. So, we can easily do away with the accuracy. Also, we might not know which codec is being used. Personally, I take the average value of 50 kbps for any codec. This gives (after calculations and approximations) 0.75 MB per minute of conversation.

So, if you plan an hour of conversation, it will be roughly 45 MB."

[RobertQc]

@cory_c  Biggest problem may be when using google hangouts, is all the other stuff running in the backroung if you have not had data in a while. If your phone starts updating hangouts may have only used 5/500mb but your update might used 495/500mb in 5 minutes.

I have never used hangouts but heres an answer from someone else

"The bandwidth used by Hangouts is adaptive and will vary to provide the best experience for the given conditions of the participants’ network. Here is a guide for the minimum and maximum bandwidth requirements and expectations:

Minimum bandwidth required:

Outbound from the participant: 300 kbps
Inbound to the participant: 300 kbps

Ideal bandwidth for the best experience:

Outbound from the participant: 2.6 mbps
Inbound to the participant: 2.6 mbps

With group video calls of more than 2 people you can expect bandwidth usage in ideal situations to be:

Outbound from the participant in all situations: 2.6 mbps
Inbound to the participant with 5 participants: 3.2 mbps
Inbound to the participant with 10 participants: 4.0 mbps

So, if you're only using it for a one-on-one, you'd be using around 4.5 Megabytes per minute in a very crappy connection (300kbps up/down, 2.25MB per minute per channel), and around 39 Megabytes per minute on a very good connection with very good HD video (2.6Mbps up/down, around 19.5MB per minute per channel)."

[stonechucker · Accepted solution]

Hangouts can be used over the WiFi network.  If you have a Google Home or Home Mini, you can associate your number with it, and use that device to make calls via Hangouts to your friends.