Report: Broadband speeds shifting into high gear
November 16, 2022
Dramatic increases in provisioned speeds are continuing to shift the broadband landscape, according to the Q3 2022 edition of the OpenVault Broadband Insights report. The report was issued by OpenVault, a market-leading source of SaaS-based revenue and network improvement solutions and data-driven insights for the broadband industry.
Using data aggregated from OpenVault’s broadband management tools, the Q3 2022 OVBI shows a continued increase in gigabit tier adoption, as well as migration of subscribers to speeds of 200 Mbps or higher. Fifteen per cent of subscribers were on gigabit tier plans in Q3 2022, an increase of 35 per cent over the 11.4 per cent figure in Q3 2021, and the percentage of subscribers on plans between 200-400 Mbps doubled to 54.8 per cent from 27.4 per cent in Q3 2021. At the end of the third quarter, only 4.7 per cent of all subscribers were provisioned for speeds of less than 50 Mbps, a reduction of more than 50 per cent from the Q3 2021 figure of 9.8 per cent.
Gigabit tier subscribers are up more than 600 per cent since the third quarter of 2019, the report notes. “This trend is impacting bandwidth usage characteristics, with faster growth in power users and median bandwidth usage,” it adds. “Faster speeds are fueling greater consumption that may be reflected in the need for greater capacity in the future.”
Other findings in the Q3 2022 report include:
- Average monthly usage of 495.5 GB was up 13.9 per cent from Q3 2021’s average of 434.9 GB, and represented a slight increase over Q2 2022’s 490.7 GB. Median broadband was up 14.3 per cent year over year, representing broader growth across all subscribers.
- Year-over-year growth of power users of 1TB or more was 18 per cent, to 13.7 per cent of all subscribers, while the super power user category of consumers of 2 TB or more rose almost 50 per cent during the same time frame.
- Participants in the American Connectivity Program consumed 615.2 GB of data in Q3 2022, 24 per cent more than the 495.5 used by the general population.