OpenVault

A new category of extreme power users who consume more than 5 Terabytes (TB) per month of broadband data has been identified in the 3Q 2023 OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report. Extreme power users consume six times more data for online gaming than do users of 1 TB or less per month; however, they consume the least amount of social media data when compared to users in other high-usage categories categories.

Significant increases in consumption and speeds, spurred in part by government incentives, powered broadband toward or past major milestones at the end of 2022.

Dramatic increases in provisioned broadband speeds are continuing to shift the broadband landscape, including a continued increase in gigabit tier adoption, as well as migration of subscribers to speeds of 200 Mbps or higher. About 15% of subscribers were on gigabit tier plans in 3Q22, an increase of 35% over the 11.4% figure in 3Q21, and the percentage of subscribers on plans between 200-400 Mbps doubled to 54.8% from 27.4% in 3Q21.

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.

Although data usage moderated in Q1 2021 after pandemic-fueled rapid growth in 2020, subscribers continued to adapt to the new broadband environment by embracing faster speeds. Almost one-tenth (9.8%) of all subscribers were provisioned for gigabit speeds at the end of Q1, a year-over-year increase of 261% from the 1Q20 figure of 3.8% and a 15% increase from the 8.5% adoption rate in 4Q20. Over the past two quarters the percentage of subscribers provisioned for gigabit-speed service has risen 75%, from 5.6% in 3Q20.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic began towards the tail end of the first quarter of 2020. The impact was immediate and has forever changed bandwidth usage patterns. As 2020 came to an end, subscribers, on average, were consuming close to one half of a terabyte (TB) of data, up 40% from 2019. The pandemic impact is even more pronounced with the growth in upstream bandwidth. OpenVault predicts that by December 2021, the average broadband consumption per household will be around 600-650 gigabytes -- that's more than six times the average broadband consumption level since 2015.

While the broadband industry has weathered the challenge of increased use during the pandemic, a continuing trend – increasing upstream usage – will continue to put pressure on network infrastructures for some time to come. Spurred by homebound workers, students and families, upstream consumption rose by 63% in 2020, 350% of historic rates of growth.

Traffic on broadband networks rose by more than half and average broadband usage approached one-half a terabyte at the end of 2020, according to the Q4 2020 OpenVault Broadband Insights (OBVI) report. Per-subscriber average data usage for 4Q20 was 482.6 GB per month, a 40% increase over the 344 GB consumed in 4Q 2019 and a 26% increase over the 3Q20 average of 383.8. At the same time, broadband providers saw subscriber increases of 6.5%, creating a net effect of 51% more broadband traffic. 4Q20 median usage rose 54% year-over-year, to 293.8 GB per month from 190.7 GB in 2019.

Key findings in the OpenVault Broadband Insight Report for the second quarter of 2020 (2Q20):

Key findings in the OpenVault Broadband Industry Report (OVBI) Q1 Quarterly Advisory: