Tablo internet data usage?

General Discussion
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What is a typical monthly internet data usage for the Tablo (without remote streaming)? I don’t mean internal network usage, just what goes in/out to the internet. I know it depends on how many channels, but an estimate will be ok.
I am considering satellite internet which has a VERY limited data cap. If I only open up the internet to the Tablo once a week, how much data usage will it need to update the guide, cache thumbnails, etc.? (This value times 4 weeks may be/probably is different than the monthly total when the Tablo is connected all the time, I’m guessing).

Which devices will connect to the Tablo without needing the internet? Will the AppleTV app?

Also, are there any problems associated with viewing the guide, etc. without internet? It should all work just fine without the internet, right?

2

@TabloSupport, do you have any info on internet traffic? Thanks.

3

Does this help?


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This question has come up so many times you would think that, based on the current version of software, tablo could supply some numbers. As an example, including sub-channels I have 12 channels “added” to the tablo server. Including movies, sports and TV shows there is currently approximately 830 shows, not episodes, in the tablo guide. So how much data does it take to download individual show and episode data.

And I would assume that tablo also phones home data.

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Sorry for the wait! Each airing may have different metadata details, images, etc - so there can be quite a bit of variance here. For example, if a channel has 14 days worth of half hour airings, it’ll require more guide data than a movie channel.

That said, as general rule of thumb (don’t expect this to be exact!), we estimate one channel can’t take about 10-11 MB of data per month.

So, for @zippy, with 12 channels added to the guide, we’d estimate about 132MB (note: not GB) of usage per month.

Hope this helps!

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Thanks @TabloSupport. I wasn’t looking for specifics, just estimated, so that helps.

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Assuming the Tablo is allowed to connect once a week for updates/data, etc., what about these?:

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Any device that connects within the house such as a Roku will only consume LAN/local bandwidth and not ISP data cap. But I’m sure that remote connected devices have their device local cache updated on each connect.

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I agree, but I’m trying to find info on the locally connected devices, not remote.

I thought I read somewhere that some devices will not connect to the Tablo without an internet connection initially.

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Some devices need the WAN independent of the tablo app to bring up the basic device menu. It use to be only the Roku that didn’t require the WAN.

Search the forum I’m sure I’ve seem some users answer that question before.

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The Roku and the FireTv will both connect to the Tablo without an internet connection. I don’t know about the new AppleTv app. The FireTv does have to be modified to work without internet, because by default it won’t load any apps without a connection.

Web based apps do require an internet connection to make a connection to the Tablo.

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Which are the web-based apps (besides the obvious web browser)?

Thanks.

13

The phone and tablet apps are web based.

14

The phone and tablet apps have since been updated to work on the LAN without Internet connectivity. The only Tablo app that requires an Internet connection is now http://my.tablotv.com/ :slight_smile:

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That’s cool. Glad to hear it.

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@TabloSupport late to the party here…While viewing live TV over my local network, is Tablo still using internet data?

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It wasn’t using internet data in the first place for live tv viewing. If you use a PC, it has to go to the internet and back to make a connection, but that’s it. As shown in the thread, the main internet usage is for the guide data each day.

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