A technique for distributing transmission resources in a media data streaming system is disclosed. A user terminal of the media data streaming system comprises an interface configured to receive a stream of variable bitrate encoded media data via a communications network. The user terminal further comprises a memory storing program code and at least one processing device configured to execute the program code. The program code causes the processing device to determine bitrate variation information for the media data stream and to trigger transmission of the bitrate variation information towards a network component. The network component is configured to trigger dynamic distribution of the transmission resources of the communications network among multiple user terminals dependent on the bitrate variation information.