Mobile internet dongle upload limit?

morphy_richards

I wonder if anyone has any experience in this and can help me out.

I'm helping with a charity that wants to install a wildlife streaming video camera in a remote location. The obvious solution is to use a 3G/4G dongle.

Assuming the stream is uploading 2Mb per second to a server this means it will be uploading about 600 gigabytes a month.

This could be brought down by various methods but whatever we do will still be many many gigabytes. (Actual downloads would be miniscule)

I've been scouring the web for uncapped dongle data deals, I cant find any but all the limits I do see seem to refer to download caps, not caps on uploads. EG http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/mobile_broadband/

Does anyone have any knowledge of what mobile broadband providers or how they would treat uploads like that?

d123

morphy_richards wrote: »

I wonder if anyone has any experience in this and can help me out.

I'm helping with a charity that wants to install a wildlife streaming video camera in a remote location. The obvious solution is to use a 3G/4G dongle.

Assuming the stream is uploading 2Mb per second to a server this means it will be uploading about 600 gigabytes a month.

This could be brought down by various methods but whatever we do will still be many many gigabytes. (Actual downloads would be miniscule)

I've been scouring the web for uncapped dongle data deals, I cant find any but all the limits I do see seem to refer to download caps, not caps on uploads. EG http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/mobile_broadband/

Does anyone have any knowledge of what mobile broadband providers or how they would treat uploads like that?

There are no unlimited MBB plans available. The allowance is upload + download for a single total.

Where do you get the 2MB per second from? A quick look at Netflix shows their video download rate starts at 300MB per hour, which is 0.08MB per second. You must be considering some super quality HD to be so much higher.

grumbler

Reportedly, it's 2Mb/s for 720p video at Youtube.

Kernel_Sanders

Quoting the whole of the OP when you are the first respondent is not only completely pointless, it's also irritating to those of us viewing on phones.

morphy_richards

d123 wrote: »

Where do you get the 2MB per second from? A quick look at Netflix shows their video download rate starts at 300MB per hour, which is 0.08MB per second. You must be considering some super quality HD to be so much higher.

uStream recommended settings
A good rule of thumb is for the bitrate of your stream to use no more than 50% of your upload bandwidth capacity on a dedicated line. For example, if the result you get from the Ustream Network test tool shows that you have 2Mbps of upload speed available, your combined audio and video bitrate should not exceed 1Mbps.
To stream in HD, you'll want at least 3-8Mbps upload speed available.

Obviously we can lower frame rate, resolution and only stream video at certain times to lower this but whatever we do, we will struggle to fit into any existing plans if as you say limit = upload + download .

Kernel_Sanders

grumbler wrote: »

Reportedly, it's 2Mb/s for 720p video at Youtube.

The OP is confusing megabits with megabytes.
It's only 74 GB per week.

d123

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

Quoting the whole of the OP when you are the first respondent is not only completely pointless, it's also irritating to those of us viewing on phones.

Tough, all too often an OP decides to edit/delete their OP if they get an answer they don't like (you've been here long enough to see it). If the OP hasn't been quoted by someone else I will always quote in my answer.

morphy_richards

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

The OP is confusing megabits with megabytes.
It's only 74 GB per week.

2Mb = 2 megabits per second. (Not 2MB / sec, that would be megabytes and would be 8 times higher)

2 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 7 * 4 = 4838400 million bits (per month).

4838400 Mb = 604.8 GB.

Any advice regarding a suitable data plan would be much appreciated

If, for example, you can help me find something that would support even 74GB / week that would be great.

d123

grumbler wrote: »

Reportedly, it's 2Mb/s for 720p video at Youtube.

Don't confuse recommended speed with data consumption.

A quick google shows one site saying a 5 minute 720P video uses around 37.5MB.

http://www.whistleout.com.au/Broadband/Guides/Broadband-Usage-Guide

37.5/5/60 = 0.125MB per second.

Another site lists YouTube 720P at 800MB per hour
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2339835/data-youtube.html

800/60/60= 0.2MB per second.

Whichever is correct, (and an IP wildlife camera normally won't be running at HD rates) they are both a long way from 2MB per second.

d123

morphy_richards wrote: »

Any advice regarding a suitable data plan would be much appreciated

There isn't one.

morphy_richards

There are a few sim only mobile deals with unlimited data plans. Is there any (legal) reason why that could not be used instead?
This article suggests there is not really anything they can do about it