OVBI: >100% Y-o-Y Jumps in Power Users, Gig Speed Adoption

OpenVault: Increases create revenue opportunities for operators

A rapid rise in the number of “power users” consuming 1 TB or more of data per month and continued migration to faster speed tiers are creating new revenue opportunities for broadband service providers, according to the Q3 2020 OVBI (OpenVault Broadband Insights) report issued today by OpenVault, a market-leading source of SaaS technology solutions and data-driven insights for the broadband industry.

With the sharp upward trending of three key year-over-year indices – a 110% increase in power users to 8.8% of all subscribers, a 172% jump in extreme power users of 2 TB or more to 1%, and a 124% rise in subscribers provisioned for gigabit speeds to 5.6% – the 3Q20 OVBI examines the disparate impacts of consumers on usage-based billing (UBB) and flat-rate billing (FRB) plans. An analysis of the top 1% of power users, for example, showed that 80% of those on UBB plans subscribe to higher-ARPU faster speed tiers, while 49% more FRB subscribers take lower-cost speed plans that provide operators with lower ARPU.

The report also provides a more detailed breakdown of the outsized impact of power users and gigabit speeds on network capacity, particularly in the upstream. In Q3:

• The top 10% of subscribers consumed more than 34% of downstream and 54% of all upstream traffic;

• The top 1% accounted for almost one-fifth (more than 19%) of total upstream usage; and

• Gigabit subscribers consumed 12.1% of downstream and 13% of upstream bandwidth.

The 3Q20 report notes that UBB operators had approximately 25% more gigabit subscribers than FRB operators during the third quarter.

“As traffic has exploded during the pandemic, data aggregated from our network management tools confirms the value of usage-based billing in prompting subscribers to self-align their speed plans with their consumption,” said Mark Trudeau, CEO of OpenVault.  “Not only does this help operators generate ARPU increases but it also increases the quality of experience and therefore improves subscriber satisfaction.”

Other key data from 3Q20 includes:

• The monthly weighted average data consumed by subscribers in 3Q20 was 383.8 GB, up nearly 40% from 2019.

• European total average usage is up 26% from nearly 178 GB in 3Q19 to 224.9 GB in 3Q20, while median usage for European subscribers reached 155.5 GB, up 36% from 3Q19 (114.3 GB).

• The sweet spot for bandwidth usage vs. speed tier is the 100 Mbps – 200 Mbps category, in which 36% of all subscribers consume approximately 36% of all bandwidth.

New for 3Q20 is the OVBI Average Broadband Household Index, a snapshot of the typical broadband environment. According to the Index, the average household used 359 GB of downstream and 25 GB of upstream bandwidth in Q3, supporting four streaming services and more than 10 connected devices.

Source: Open Vault media announcement