In late 2021, research from network improvement systems provider OpenVault found that customers pushing against the upper limits of their broadband network’s speed tiers had increased dramatically over the past 18 months, putting enormous pressure on hybrid infrastructure, and now the company expects data consumption on such infrastructure to rocket over the course of 2022. saw
The OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) Report Fourth Quarter 2022 Edition Calculations were made using aggregated measurement data from OpenVault’s suite Broadband management tools. The data is used to identify usage patterns, with distinctions between two key categories: customers on flat-rate billing (FRB) plans offered unlimited data usage; and those on usage-based billing (UBB) plans, whereby customers are billed based on their bandwidth consumption.
According to the survey, average broadband usage reached a new high of nearly 600GB per month at the end of last year, and the percentage of customers on gigabit speed tiers is shown to have more than doubled in the previous 12 months.
Specifically, the report calculated that the average per-customer consumption at the end of 2022 was 586.7GB, an increase of about 10% compared to the previous year. During the same period, the percentage of customers who subscribed to gigabit speeds rose to 26%, more than double the 12.2% figure in the fourth quarter of 2021. About 35% of UBB customers get gigabit speeds, up from 13% a year ago and 2.5 times the percentage of FRB gigabit customers.
Year-over-year upstream and downstream bandwidth growth was relatively flat at 9.4% and 10.1%, respectively, in the fourth quarter of 2022.
While the weighted average data usage of 586.7GB in the fourth quarter of 2022 was up 9.4% from the equivalent 536.3GB in the 2021 quarter, the study found that year-on-year speeds increased by 40.3% to 482.6GB from the peak in the 2020 quarter. The weighted average combines data from FRB and UBB customers.
The fourth quarter of 2022 found 18.7% of users using 1TB or more of power per month, up 16% year-over-year and 10 times the percentage seen in the fourth quarter, just five years ago. 2017. Annual growth of super power users, those using 2TB or more per month, increased by 25% in the fourth quarter of 2022, from 2.7% to 3.4%, a nearly 30-fold increase over the past five years. OpenVault notes that as the migration to faster tiers continues, the percentage of customers at tiers below 200Mbps declined by 43% in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Continuous analysis of OpenVault FCC’s Affordable Connection Program shows that the median usage of ACP participants in the fourth quarter of 2022 was 531.9GB, 34% higher than the 396.6GB recorded by all customers. In addition, OVBI noted for the first time a significantly higher average usage trend on Christmas Day that begins in the mid-morning and continues into the afternoon.
Commenting on the report, OpenVault said: “Demand for greater Internet speeds continues to grow. Operators need to be aware not only of this overall growth, but also of growth within specific customer segments and over time. Spending by subscribers to the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program continues to outpace all subscribers, and peak time spending spikes – especially in and around the holiday season. Both are considerations that need to be addressed in network planning.”