This FAQ explains how you can save on your bandwidth usage each month if you find that you are exceeding your monthly bandwidth allowance with our “Pay Monthly” plans and can't afford to upgrade. There are several ways in which you can reduce the amount of data transfer on your server account. We provide a few suggestions for this below.
Lowering your streams bitrate:
Lowering the bitrate for your stream would really help to lower your bandwidth usage. So for example, streaming with a bitrate of 128kbps rather than 320kbps would immediately halve your bandwidth usage.
We provide a bandwidth calculator here that will give you a good idea of how much bandwidth your listeners will use based on the streaming bitrate used and also by the listener count and the amount of time that they spend listening.
Changing your streams format:
If you are running a Shoutcast server then you could run your stream in the AAC format instead of using the standard Mp3 format.
The advantages to using AAC over Mp3 is that AAC allows for achieving the same or even better sound quality to Mp3 whilst streaming at a lower bitrate which would save on bandwidth usage. So for example, streaming in AAC at 96kbps would sound as good as if not slightly better (and use less bandwidth) than streaming in Mp3 at 128kbps.
The only downside is that AAC is not quite as well supported as MP3 although nowadays it works in most players including most HTML5 (web based) players.
Limiting the number of listener slots:
You could consider limiting the maximum number of listener slots for your station. Obviously the less people that are connecting to the stream then the less data transfer that will be required. We would only really consider this as a last resort as the previous two suggestions should help you use a significant less amount of bandwidth alone.
Lowering your streams bitrate:
Lowering the bitrate for your stream would really help to lower your bandwidth usage. So for example, streaming with a bitrate of 128kbps rather than 320kbps would immediately halve your bandwidth usage.
We provide a bandwidth calculator here that will give you a good idea of how much bandwidth your listeners will use based on the streaming bitrate used and also by the listener count and the amount of time that they spend listening.
Changing your streams format:
If you are running a Shoutcast server then you could run your stream in the AAC format instead of using the standard Mp3 format.
The advantages to using AAC over Mp3 is that AAC allows for achieving the same or even better sound quality to Mp3 whilst streaming at a lower bitrate which would save on bandwidth usage. So for example, streaming in AAC at 96kbps would sound as good as if not slightly better (and use less bandwidth) than streaming in Mp3 at 128kbps.
The only downside is that AAC is not quite as well supported as MP3 although nowadays it works in most players including most HTML5 (web based) players.
Limiting the number of listener slots:
You could consider limiting the maximum number of listener slots for your station. Obviously the less people that are connecting to the stream then the less data transfer that will be required. We would only really consider this as a last resort as the previous two suggestions should help you use a significant less amount of bandwidth alone.
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