The Data Use for Pandora on Android

Audio Encoding

Unlike many other mobile streaming audio programs that encode and stream audio in a MP3 format, Pandora encodes its audio in a more compact AAC format. This allows Pandora to stream higher quality audio with less data usage. Pandora has two streaming options, a Normal Quality 64kpbs AAC stream and a High Quality 128kbps AAC stream. You can switch between these two modes in the Preferences menu within the Pandora app.

Data Usage

When audio is encoded at 64 kbps, or 64 kilobits per second, each minute of audio requires 480 kilobytes of data or about half of a megabyte to transmit. Given an average song length of three minutes, each song would require roughly 1.5 megabytes. An hour of audio would require just over 28 megabytes. Each of these values doubles if you are using high quality data encoding, resulting in more data usage.

Data Caps

Many cellular carriers put limits on the amount of data that you can receive over your phone's Internet connection. If you exceed these limits, you are typically subject to a hefty charge for each additional megabyte of data used. If you are on a 200 megabyte per month plan, you can listen to over seven hours of music at normal-quality encoding before exceeding your plan, assuming you do not use other data. On a 2 gigabyte per month plan, you could listen to almost 73 hours of music per month.

Connection Type

To avoid data charges altogether, connect to local Wi-Fi networks whenever possible. When you are connected to a Wi-Fi network, Pandora will not use your device's 3G connection. Pandora will also default to high-quality audio when you are connected to a Wi-Fi network.