Household Broadband Usage is Up Again

OpenVault just published its Broadband Insights Report for the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. As usual, the results are astounding and demonstrate the continued strong growth of household broadband usage. I think one of the most useful statistics from OpenVault is the average household usage of broadband; there were not many people in the industry in 2018 who would have believed that the average home usage in 2021 would be using over a half terabyte of data each month. Another startling number is the percentage of US households that now use over a terabyte of data each month – something that OpenVault calls power users. OpenVault says that 2.7 percent of all US households now use over two terabytes of data per month. These statistics must be sweet music to those internet service providers with data caps that penalize home for using the broadband they’ve purchased. I also think that the most interesting statistic is the rapid migration of customers to faster broadband tiers. In just the last year, the number of households subscribed to gigabit broadband is up 250 percent, while the number subscribed to slower speeds has dropped precipitously. Many millions of homes over the last year upgraded to faster broadband plans.

[Doug Dawson is President of CCG Consulting.]