Does 5G use more data than 4G?

No, 5G makes no file heavier: the network carries, it does not inflate. And yet your usage climbs after the switch, sometimes fourfold. The explanation sits in an app setting, not in an antenna. The comparator below puts a number on the gap, using your own hours.

Does 5G really use more data than 4G?

Technically no. In practice, almost always yes.

A megabyte is a megabyte. A 5G antenna does not rewrite the file it carries, it delivers it faster. Download a 40 MB document and it will weigh 40 MB on both networks, with your meter moving exactly the same. On that point, the pages explaining that "5G uses more data" have the mechanism wrong.

What changes is that most of your usage does not download a fixed-size file: it requests a stream, and the quality of that stream is negotiated live with the network. Video streaming, audio streaming, video calls, cloud gaming — in all of those, the app looks at the throughput available and serves the best quality the connection can hold. A wider pipe does not push the same water through faster: it pushes more water.

Hence the angle of this article, which is not the usual one: 5G is not a cause, it is a permission. And a permission can be withdrawn in the settings.

Why does the same video weigh more on 5G?

Because the providers document it themselves, in plain words.

Netflix describes its Auto setting as the one that "adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current internet connection speed". The same page puts numbers on the four levels, per hour and per device: up to 0.3 GB on Low, 0.7 on Medium, then 1, 3 and 7 GB on High depending on whether the source is standard definition, high definition or 4K. It also states that on the Maximum Data mobile setting the app can use 1 GB every twenty minutes — that is 3 GB per hour, which matches the HD line and serves as a cross-check.

YouTube publishes a recommended sustained speed per resolution: 0.7 Mbps at 360p, 1.1 at 480p, 2.5 at 720p, 5 at 1080p and 20 in 4K. That table is the key to the whole thing. A busy 4G cell at peak hour struggles to hold a sustained 20 Mbps; a 5G link holds it without effort. So the player climbs to 4K where it used to stay at 1080p, and the hour of video goes from 2.25 to 9 GB without you touching anything.

Spotify follows the same logic on audio, with trivial stakes: approximately 24 kbit/s on Low, 96 on Normal, 160 on High and 320 on Very high, that is 10.8 to 144 MB per hour. Even at maximum, music will never derail a bill.

Zoom is the most underestimated case, because it publishes its recommended bandwidth as two numbers: upload and download. A video call sends your camera continuously, and that upstream flow counts against your allowance exactly like the downstream one. On plain high quality, 1.0 + 0.6 Mbps; at 1080p, 3.8 + 3.0. The hour of video calling therefore goes from 0.72 to 3.06 GB.

How big is the gap, concretely?

On a common profile, 33.59 GB per month — for exactly the same hours of usage.

Take the comparator's default profile, that of an ordinary Belgian subscriber: four hours of Netflix a month off Wi-Fi, ten hours of YouTube, thirty hours of Spotify, two hours of video calling from the phone. The hours do not change from one column to the other. Only the quality served changes.

The gap is 33.59 GB, usage multiplied by four. And there is a detail in that table I find remarkable: the 11.35 GB in the 4G column land half a gigabyte from the Belgian average recorded by BIPT, which is 11.9 GB per month per SIM card in July 2026. The profile is not extreme at all: it is the average Belgian. The 5G column pushes that same person to nearly four times the national average.

Two lines carry most of the rise. YouTube first, because the 480p → 1080p jump multiplies the bitrate served by 4.5. Video calls second: for two miserable hours, they add 4.68 GB, which is more than thirty hours of Spotify consume in total. That is the opposite of intuition, and it is why an estimate made off the top of your head is systematically wrong.

How big is the gap by quality setting?

Here are the per-hour benchmarks, to place any profile without going through the tool.

That table says something simple: on video, the setting weighs twenty to thirty times more than any other decision you will make. Switching operator does not change your usage by a single megabyte. Moving one slider in Netflix divides it by ten.

How do you block that rise without giving up 5G?

By fixing the quality instead of leaving it on automatic. Four moves, all free, all reversible:

• Netflix: Account, then Profiles, then Playback settings. The setting applies per profile, not per device — so it has to be done for every member of the household. On mobile, a separate setting lives in the app, under App Settings.
• YouTube: pick a default resolution in the video quality settings rather than "Auto". The "Data saver" option caps playback without you having to come back to it.
• Spotify: Settings, then Media Quality. The Normal level is plenty on the move, and the gap with Very high amounts to 100 MB per hour of listening.
• Video calls: turn the camera off when you are not the one speaking. It is the only move in this article that halves a usage figure without changing anything else, because it removes the upstream flow.

Set both columns of the comparator to the same option and you will watch the gap fall to zero. That is not a flaw in the tool, it is its demonstration: the network decides nothing.

5G does not consume your plan. It gives your apps permission to consume it — and that permission is withdrawn in four clicks.

Should you change plan when moving to 5G?

That depends on what you have just decided, not on what the operator is selling.

If you leave everything on automatic, the profile above goes from 11.35 to 44.94 GB, and with 30% headroom for background traffic you need to aim at a 100 GB tier. If you lock the quality, it stays at 11.35 GB and a 15 GB plan is still enough. Between the two, on the Belgian commercial ladder, there are four notches: 20, 30, 50, then 100.

The market reflex here is to sell you the problem and the solution at the same time: you are offered 5G, then a bigger plan "because 5G uses more data". The causality is backwards. Look at the price after the promo, not the headline price, and set your real volume against the 5G plan ranking or the comparator. If your usage genuinely justifies large volumes, the question becomes unlimited data, and I have covered elsewhere what Mobile Vikings' €25 unlimited is worth — spoiler: unlimited volume is not unlimited speed.

One last thing before signing anything: you still need to actually get 5G at your address. Coverage figures per network are in our municipality-by-municipality survey. What BIPT says, not the marketing map.

What does this comparator not tell you?

It quantifies a gap between settings; it does not measure your phone.

• It models neither social apps, nor GPS navigation, nor online gaming. None of those providers publishes an hourly usage figure. Reconstructing one from memory would produce exactly the kind of invented coefficient found elsewhere, so the "other usage" line is left empty, for you to fill in if you have measured it.
• It does not separate Wi-Fi from mobile data. Only the hours spent off Wi-Fi count against your plan. That is the most common mistake in practice, and it inflates the result spectacularly.
• The 30% headroom has no source. App updates, photo backups, ads, notifications: that background traffic is real and nobody publishes a figure for it — not the providers, not the operators, not the regulator. It is an editable starting point, shown as such.
• The default settings offered are debatable. Nothing forces a 4G link to serve 480p or a 5G link to serve 1080p: it depends on the hour, on cell load and on your distance to the antenna. That is precisely why the tool makes you choose both columns instead of deciding for you.

This is neither a reading, nor a quote, nor personal advice. The figure that counts is the one on your phone, under mobile data usage, and in a dispute the one held by your operator.

Sources — Netflix, "How to control how much data Netflix uses": Auto setting adjusted to connection speed, 0.3 / 0.7 / 1 / 3 / 7 GB per hour and per device (retrieved 21 August 2026); YouTube, "System requirements & supported devices for YouTube": recommended sustained speeds of 0.7 to 20 Mbps depending on resolution (retrieved 21 August 2026); Spotify, "Audio quality": approximately 24 / 96 / 160 / 320 kbit/s (retrieved 21 August 2026); Zoom, "System requirements: iOS, iPadOS, and Android": recommended upload and download bandwidth (retrieved 21 August 2026); BIPT, "Mobile data usage has more than tripled in five years", 11.9 GB per month per SIM card against 3.9 GB five years earlier, and nearly eight postpaid subscribers out of ten above 10 GB included (published July 2026, retrieved 21 August 2026). Conversion applied: megabytes per hour = kilobits per second × 3600 ÷ 8 ÷ 1000, in decimal gigabytes.