According to the Q3 2022 edition of the OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report, dramatic increases in provisioned speeds are continuing to shift the broadband landscape.
Using data aggregated from OpenVault’s broadband management tools, the 3Q22 OVBI report shows a continued increase in gigabit tier adoption, as well as migration of subscribers to speeds of 200 Mbps or higher.
According to the data, fifteen percent of subscribers were on gigabit tier plans in 3Q22, an increase of 35% over the 11.4% figure in 3Q21. Meanwhile, the report finds the percentage of subscribers on plans between 200-400 Mbps doubled to 54.8% from 27.4% in 3Q21.
Significantly, Openvault notes that at the end of the third quarter, only 4.7% of all subscribers were provisioned for speeds of less than 50 Mbps, a reduction of more than 50% from the 3Q21 figure of 9.8%.
Gigabit tier subscribers are up more than 600% since the third quarter of 2019, the report finds.
As stated by Openvault's executive summary:
“This trend is impacting bandwidth usage characteristics, with faster growth in power users and median bandwidth usage. Faster speeds are fueling greater consumption that may be reflected in the need for greater capacity in the future.”
More report highlights
Per Openvault, the 3Q22 OVBI report also found that average monthly broadband usage of 495.5 GB was up 13.9% from 3Q21’s average of 434.9 GB, representing a slight increase over 2Q22’s usage of 490.7 GB.
Meanwhile, the report found that median broadband was up 14.3% year over year, representing broader growth across all subscribers.
Also according to the OVBI report, year-over-year growth of power users of 1TB or more was 18%, to 13.7% of all subscribers, while the super power user category of consumers of 2 TB or more rose almost 50% during the same time frame.
Finally, the report's summary notes that "participants in the American Connectivity Program consumed 615.2 GB of data in 3Q22, 24% more than the 495.5 used by the general population."