Percentage of broadband users consuming more than a terabyte of data per month continues to climb

The percentage of broadband users consuming more than a terabyte of data per month continues to climb, helping push average monthly consumption beyond half a terabyte for the first time in Q4 2021. The average monthly usage in Q4 hit 536.3 GB in the period, up 11.1 percent from 482.6 GB in Q4 2020. The percentage of users consuming more than 1 TB each month rose to 16% from 14 percent the year prior, while the percentage of those using more than 2 TB per month increased from 2.2 to 2.65 percent. Perhaps unsurprisingly, data consumption rose more slowly among subscribers on usage-based billing (UBB) plans than those on flat-rate billing (FRB). UBB customers consumed an average of 510.8 GB per month in Q4, while FRB subscribers gobbled up 576.0 GB. The rise in consumption was accompanied by increased adoption of higher-speed broadband tiers. In Q4 2021, 12.2 percent of customers were on a speed tier of 1 Gbps or higher, while 5.5 percent took speeds of between 500-900 Mbps and 28.5 percent took plans offering between 200-400 Mbps. Those figures compared to 8.5 percent, 3.7 and 15.8 percent, respectively in Q4 2020. Less than 10 percent of subscribers remain on tiers offering speeds below 50 Mbps.