Strong 8K
In most of the world this question no longer comes up. In Canada it still does, because monthly limits have not disappeared here the way they have elsewhere. Before changing how your household watches television, it is worth knowing what that change costs in data rather than guessing. The arithmetic is simple once you have the right figures, and most households discover they have more room than they feared. The Strong 8K home page sets out what the service includes.
What an Hour Actually Costs
Video consumes a fairly predictable amount of data per hour, governed mostly by picture quality and how efficiently the stream is compressed.
For one stream, on one screen, the working figures are these. Standard definition sits at roughly 1 GB per hour. High definition is around 3 GB per hour. Ultra HD at 4K lands between 5 and 7 GB per hour, depending on the compression in use.
Those three numbers do all the work in this article. Everything that follows is multiplication.
Note the gap between HD and 4K. Moving a household from high definition to ultra high definition roughly doubles its data use, which is a larger jump than most people expect from a setting they changed once and forgot.
What That Means Over a Month
Hourly figures are abstract. Monthly figures are the ones that appear on a bill.
Two hours a night in high definition works out to around 180 GB a month. The same two hours in 4K comes to roughly 420 GB. Four hours a night in 4K approaches 840 GB, which starts to press against the limits some plans carry.
A household with the television on as background noise rather than being watched deserves its own line here. Six hours a day in HD is around 540 GB a month, and the same six hours in 4K exceeds a terabyte. Background viewing consumes exactly as much data as attentive viewing.
Where Limits Still Exist in Canada
This is the part that makes the question a Canadian one rather than a general one.
Monthly limits have not vanished here. They survive in several specific places, and knowing which applies to you matters more than any national average.
Entry-level and promotional wired plans. The cheapest tier of a cable or fibre plan is where a limit most often remains, while the more expensive tiers of the same provider carry none.
Satellite internet. Limits here usually take the form of a priority data allowance. Once it is used, the connection continues but at reduced priority, which in practice means slower speeds when the network is busy.
Fixed wireless. Soft limits are common, with the same deprioritisation rather than a hard stop.
Mobile hotspot. The tightest allowances of all, and the easiest to exhaust with a single evening of television.
What happens on reaching a limit also varies. Some providers charge for the overage, some reduce your speed until the billing period resets, and some cap the total overage charge for a month. These are terms worth reading before relying on an estimate.
Check Your Own Usage Before Estimating
Any calculation based on the figures above is an estimate. Your provider has the actual number, and it is usually one click away in your account.
Look at your last three months rather than the most recent one. A single month can be distorted by a holiday, a houseguest or a large download, and three months shows the pattern.
Then compare. If your household already uses 400 GB a month and your plan allows a terabyte, adding a television service in high definition is comfortably within reach. If you are using 900 GB against the same limit, the quality setting becomes a decision rather than a detail.
This check costs nothing and replaces a guess with a number.
What Else Is Consuming It
Television is rarely the largest line in a household's data use, and attributing everything to it leads to the wrong conclusion.
Game consoles download patches measured in tens of gigabytes, sometimes without being asked. Phones and computers back up photographs continuously. Operating system updates arrive without announcement. A doorbell or security camera uploading around the clock can account for a substantial share on its own.
Before concluding that television is the problem, it is worth establishing what proportion of the total it actually represents. Many providers break usage down by day, which makes a large one-off download easy to spot against a steady daily pattern.
How to Use Less Without Watching Less
Where the arithmetic does come out tight, several adjustments reduce consumption without changing how much you watch.
Match the quality to the screen. The difference between high definition and 4K is clearly visible on a large screen viewed from close by. On a bedroom television, or a screen watched from across a room, the difference is far less apparent while the data cost more than doubles. Setting quality per device rather than globally is the single most effective adjustment available.
Check what the background is doing. A television left running while nobody watches consumes at the same rate as one being watched. Most devices offer a sleep timer, and it pays for itself in data.
Watch where downloads are scheduled. Many providers once offered unmetered overnight hours. Where that still applies to your plan, moving large downloads into that window frees the daytime allowance for viewing.
Know what autoplay costs. A service that plays the next item automatically continues consuming data long after the room has emptied. Turning it off is a setting, not a sacrifice.
Why an Adapting Service Uses Less
One technical point deserves mention, because it affects consumption as much as any setting.
A service that adapts its quality to the available connection does not always send the maximum. When the connection dips, it sends less rather than stalling, which means the per-hour figures above are a ceiling rather than a constant.
A service that cannot adapt behaves differently: it requests the same amount regardless, and either delivers it or stops. Over a month, the adapting service generally consumes less for the same viewing, because not every hour is transmitted at full quality.
This is worth knowing when comparing options, because it is invisible from a specification sheet.
Where the Service Fits
A television service delivered over broadband uses your existing connection rather than a separate line. That is the point of it, and it is also why the data question arises in the first place.
The figures in this article apply to any such service. What varies between them is how gracefully each handles a connection under pressure, and whether quality can be set per device rather than once for the whole household.
Strong 8K carries 40,000 live channels in HD and 4K UHD alongside 150,000 films and series on demand, and runs on Smart TV, Fire TV Stick, Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows and Mac. There is nothing to rent and no contract, so testing it against your own plan and your own usage costs a month rather than a commitment.
The guide on the internet plan you actually need covers the speed side of the same question, and evening buffering deals with what happens when the connection rather than the allowance is the limit.
Ready to try it against your own plan?
Strong 8K runs on the broadband you already have, on Smart TV, Firestick, Android, iPhone, Windows and Mac.
Subscribe nowQuestions
How much data does an hour of television use?
Roughly 1 GB in standard definition, around 3 GB in high definition, and between 5 and 7 GB at 4K, for one stream on one screen. Those three figures are all you need; the rest is multiplication by hours watched.
Do Canadian internet plans still have data limits?
Some do. They survive mainly on entry-level and promotional wired tiers, on satellite as a priority data allowance, on fixed wireless as a soft limit with reduced priority, and on mobile hotspot allowances. Higher tiers from the same provider often carry none.
What happens if I go over?
It depends on the provider. Some charge for the overage, some reduce your speed until the billing period resets, and some cap the monthly overage charge. These terms are worth reading before relying on any estimate.
How do I find my actual usage?
Your provider records it, usually visible in your online account. Look at three months rather than one, since a single month can be distorted by a holiday or a large download. That number replaces every estimate in this article.
Is 4K worth the extra data?
On a large screen viewed from close by, the difference is clear. On a bedroom television or a screen watched from across a room it is far less apparent, while the data cost more than doubles. Setting quality per device rather than globally is the most effective adjustment.
Does the television use data when nobody is watching?
Yes, at exactly the same rate. A screen left running as background noise consumes as much as one being watched attentively. A sleep timer is the simplest remedy, and autoplay settings are worth checking for the same reason.