OpenVault: COVID-19 Broadband Usage "Reaching A Plateau"

Broadband consumption is showing indications of reaching a plateau in markets that have been “quarantined” against the coronavirus pandemic, according to the most recent data analyzed by OpenVault. Following three weeks of double-digit percentage growth, the total downstream data usage in those markets with shelter-at-home policies declined 5.80% during the week of March 30–April 3 when compared to the previous week. While total upstream usage continued to grow during the March 30–April 3 timeframe, the increase over the previous week was only 2.3%. Overall data usage growth in quarantined markets is 33.1%, when measured against OpenVault’s Jan 2020 usage benchmarks.

Among other daily usage trends:

• Average daily downstream consumption during the 9 am-to-5 pm business hours in the last week was 6.35 GB, 42.46% higher than the Jan level of 4.46 GB.
• Average daily business hour upstream usage rose 82.5% from Jan through April 3, from 0.215 GB to 0.392 GB.
• Overall, daily usage grew from 12.19 GB in Jan to 16.22 GB through April 3, indicating a new monthly run rate of more than 480 GB per subscriber during the current crisis.