OpenVault Just released its Broadband Industry Report for 4Q 2019 that tracks the way that the US consumes data. The results of the reports are as eye-opening as OpenVault reports for the last few years. OpenVault has been collecting broadband usage for more than ten years.

As usual, the OpenVault statistics are a wake-up cry for the industry. The most important finding is that the average monthly data consumed by households grew by 27% from 2018 to 2019, and in the fourth quarter of 2019, the average home used 344 gigabytes of data, up from 275 gigabytes a year earlier. Note that consumption is a combination of download and upload usage—with most consumption being downloaded.

The monthly weighted average data consumed by subscribers in 4Q19 was 344 gigabytes, up 27% from 4Q18’s weighted average of 270.2 GB and up almost 69 GB, or 25%, from 3Q19.
Source: OpenVault Broadband Industry Report (OVBI) 4Q 2019

For the first time, the company compared homes with unlimited data plans to those that have plans with data caps. They reported that homes with no data caps used 353 gigabytes per month, while homes with data caps used 337 gigabytes per month. That statistic would suggest that homes with data caps try to curb their usage to avoid overage charges.

Interestingly, median usage was significantly different from average usage. Median means the same as midpoint, and the median data usage was 191 gigabytes per month, meaning half of US homes used more than that and half used less. In looking at their numbers, I have to suppose that the median is a lot less than average due to the many homes using slow DSL that can’t consume a lot of broadband.

The report also looks at power users—homes that consume a lot of broadband. They report that nearly 1% of homes now use 2 terabytes per month and 7.7% use over 1 terabyte per month. A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes. The percentage of homes using over 1 terabyte climbed from 4% a year earlier. This statistic is important because it shows a quickly increasing number of homes that will be hitting the 1 terabyte data caps of ISPs like Comcast, AT&T, Cox, and CenturyLink. I clearly remember Comcast saying just a few years ago that almost no homes had an issue with their data caps, but that no longer can be true.

Homes are starting to buy 1 gigabit broadband when it’s available and affordable. 2.8% of homes in the country now subscribe to gigabit speeds, up 86% from the 1.5% of homes that bought gigabit in 2018.

54% of homes now purchase broadband plans with speeds of 100 Mbps or faster. Another 23.6% of homes are subscribing to broadband between 50-75 Mbps. This means that nearly 78% of homes are subscribing to data plans of greater than 50 Mbps. The average subscribed speed grew significantly since 2018 from 103 Mbps to 128 Mbps. These subscriber statistics should shame the FCC for deciding to stick with the 25/3 Mbps definition of broadband. The agency is clearly setting a target speed for rural America that is far behind the reality of the marketplace.

OpenVault made one comparison to Europe and showed that we consume a lot more broadband here. While the US average consumption of broadband in 4Q 2019 was 344 gigabytes here, it was 196 gigabytes in Europe.

As OpenVault statistics have done in the past, they show network engineers that the demand for new broadband is not abating but is continuing to explode. An annual 27% increase in broadband consumption means that broadband demand is continuing to double every three years. If that growth rate is sustained, then our networks need to be prepared within a decade to carry 8.6 times more data than today. That’s enough to keep network engineers up at night.