'Extreme power users' an upgrade opportunity for broadband ops – OpenVault

Broadband data analysis specialist OpenVault is elaborating on a new, growing group of "extreme power users" who consume 5 terabytes (TB) of data per month or more. They are in a subcategory that cable operators need to monitor because they can bog down the network. But the group also presents upgrade and revenue opportunities for broadband service providers.

As OpenVault CEO Mark Trudeau told Light Reading in October at Cable-Tec Expo in Denver, that extreme power user group is small but expanding. The cohort has grown by more than 60% year-over-year, according to OpenVault's Q3 2023 Broadband Insights Report, which analyzes anonymized data collected from its ISP customers (such as from an optical line terminal or a cable modem termination system) to help pin down usage metrics and other broadband usage-related trends.

Extreme power users, who tend to stream a lot more video than other groups, also showed outsized upstream consumption – nearly 1TB per month on average, some 12 times the amount of the average upstream usage of lower-level power users who generally consume around 1TB of data upstream and downstream combined each month.

(Source: OpenVault Q3 2023 Broadband Insights Report)

The majority of customers in the extreme power user base (59%) are getting speeds of 1 Gbit/s or more. But OpenVault found that 7% of the group is getting speeds of 100 Mbit/s or less.

"Operators need to look at this as a revenue opportunity. You're crazy not to reach out to those customers and try to get them to upgrade," OpenVault CEO Mark Trudeau said. "They're going to be happier, and you're going to get more revenue."

Speed upgrades, of course, can lead to higher broadband average revenue per user (ARPU), a metric that the cable industry is emphasizing as operators struggle to grow broadband subscribers amid rising competition and a sluggish housing move market.

Overall data consumption still rising

Looking at the broader picture, OpenVault found that average usage continues to climb, but not nearly at the pace that was seen during the early stages of the pandemic when people were locked down and working and schooling from home.

Average usage (for customers on either unlimited or usage-based data plans) reached 550 gigabytes (GB) in Q3 2023, up from 495.5GB in the year-ago period.

Trudeau said he's somewhat surprised that data consumption continues to rise about 10% to 12% each year, but he attributed that trend to operators introducing speed upgrades along with more usage of bandwidth-intensive applications.

Meanwhile, the share of broadband subs provisioned for speeds of 1 Gbit/s or more inched up to 32.1% from 31.6% in the prior quarter. That cohort was only outpaced by a group of customers who are provisioned to get speeds in the range of 200 Mbit/s to 400 Mbit/s.

(Source: OpenVault Q3 2023 Broadband Insights Report)

Notably, OpenVault is seeing an increase in the number of customers taking speed tiers of 1 Gbit/s or more who get service from operators with usage-based plans. Trudeau said that trend is on the rise because many operators toss in unlimited data with their premium 1-Gig-plus tiers.

Meanwhile, the cohort getting speeds of 100 Mbit/s or less (just 10.1%) is on the decline – down 22% since Q3 2022. While part of that is attributed to new customers taking faster speeds when they sign on or from speed upgrades, there are also signs that some operators are retiring some of their lower-speed tiers.