Average broadband usage on pace to surpass 1TB by 2029 – OpenVault

Average broadband data consumption climbed 9.3% to 641 gigabytes (GB) in 2023, putting the average on pace to exceed 700GB by the end of 2024 and soar past 1 terabyte (TB) by the end of 2028, OpenVault found in its latest Broadband Insights report.

The rise in average usage could cause some broadband operators to adjust their monthly data caps or more heavily promote unlimited data plans.

OpenVault attributed the rise to a growing group of "extreme power users" who consume more than 5TB each month. OpenVault, which bases its quarterly reports on anonymized data collected from its broadband service provider partners, first identified that group in its Q3 2023 study.

Asymmetrical traffic

While overall usage is on the rise, traffic remains highly asymmetrical. In Q4 2023, average downstream usage was 600.9GB compared to 40.05GB in the upstream direction. However, the annual rate of upstream usage growth (+13.5%) topped the pace of growth on the downstream side (+9%).

The usage picture changes among commercial broadband users that tend to move large files, participate in video calls, and use cloud-based applications. OpenVault found that business customers averaged about 68GB of monthly upstream usage – about 74% higher than the average of 39GB among residential customers.

Amid the availability of faster speed tiers, OpenVault's latest report found that a third of broadband customers are now provisioned for gigabit speeds, an increase of 29% from Q4 2022. The proportion of subs on speeds below 100 Mbit/s has dropped to just 10%.

Power users to the extreme

"Power users" who consume 1TB or more per month now account for more than one-fifth of all subscribers (21.6%), while the percentage of "super power users" (2TB or more) grew 37% since Q4 2022, representing 4.7% of all broadband subs, OpenVault found.

Meanwhile, "extreme power users" who chew up 5TB of data or more per month has climbed 71% since Q4 2022, according to OpenVault. On average, these users consume 6.6TB of downstream data and nearly 1TB of upstream data. Notably, about 15% of customers are provisioned for speeds of less than 200 Mbit/s.

"This high-usage group would benefit greatly from an upgrade to a faster speed tier," OpenVault noted in the report.