Netflix users streamed some 6.5 billion hours of video during the first quarter of the year, CordCuttersNews has learned, which amounts to over 19,500,000 terabytes (TB) during the period, or around 6,500,000TB every month. The publication says that at this rate, Netflix will use 78,000,000TB in 2014, at an average HD quality.
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Average Netflix data usage has apparently increased by 2,500,000TB every month compared to the same period last year, when the company streamed 4 billion hours of video totaling 12,000,000 TB.
At the same rates, Netflix will use 27,000,000TB of data in the first quarter of next year, assuming customers stick to 3GB-an-hour HD streaming and don’t move to 4K streaming that consumes 7GB of data for every hour of streaming.
Moving to 4K streaming only could increase data usage to 45,500,000TB of data every quarter, for the same amount of video streamed during the first quarter of the year.
In addition to Netflix, there are many other popular content streaming services that are also likely to consume serious amounts of data each quarter, which isn’t surprising, considering that more and more people prefer watching their favorite movies and TV shows online rather than on TV. And this huge amount of streaming data is probably why ISPs are really interested in charging companies like Netflix and others fees so that customers get a decent streaming experience.
