Media Broadband Usage on Pace to Surpass 250 GB per Month in 2020

Median monthly usage by broadband subscribers in 2020 is on a trajectory to surpass 250 gigabytes (GB) for the first time, according to the Q4 2019 OpenVault Broadband Industry report. Consistent with a correlation between broadband consumption and average provisioned speeds that has existed during OpenVault’s 10 years of analysis, the report notes that a 24.4% increase in average provisioned speed, from 103.1 megabits per second (Mbps) to 128.3 Mbps, in 2019 was slightly outpaced by a 27.3% increase in average consumption, from 270.2 GB to 344 GB.  A median usage of 250 GB would represent a 24.9 % increase from the 2019 median of 190.7 GB. Using similarly historical factors for high volume subscribers, OpenVault expects that by the end of 2020 “power usage” of more than 1 TB per month will account for at least 12% of all subscribers, a 60% increase from EOY 2019, and that “extreme power usage” of more than 2TB will reach 1.4% of subscribers, an 80% increase from EOY 2019.