Tag Archives: OpenVault

Is AI Changing Traffic Patterns?

Mitch Wagner of Fierce Network recently published an article that claims that AI is blowing up 30 years of traffic network assumptions. He claims that AI traffic is smoothing the daily peaks and dips in network traffic that all ISPs are familiar with. While every ISP is a little different, any ISP that serves a lot of end-user customers expects traffic peaks in the evening, smaller peaks during the daytime, and very low levels of network traffic at night.

Network engineers have always paid close attention to the peaks, which were the main factor in determining the size of network connections. Nobody wants to have a network that restricts bandwidth when customers want to use it the most. The cable companies learned this lesson the hard way during the pandemic when customers suddenly needed to work and school from home and found the broadband connections unable to meet their needs, particularly in homes where more than one person wanted to use the network at the same time. Every network engineer I know can cite the busy hour, busy day, and busy week on the networks they manage.

Wager says the peaks in traffic are evening out and that networks are seeing a more consistent demand throughout the day. Wagner cites Ed Fox, the CTO of MetTel, from an interview given for a Fierce Network Research report.

I have no reason not to believe Mr. Fox. However, MetTel is an ISP that operates in major urban centers and likely serves the kinds of businesses that have become heavy AI users. It’s not hard to imagine that an urban ISP serving businesses might be seeing a drastic change in traditional network traffic patterns. But I have to think that MetTel and other urban business-centric ISPs didn’t have the same traffic patterns as other ISPs before the advent of AI.

I work with a number of ISPs and I have not heard anybody talking about a big change in traffic patterns. My clients work in a variety of markets, from rural to urban, but none concentrate on the urban market business that MetTel is experiencing in places like New York City.

However, I appreciate the article, because if it’s true, then most ISPs, except for fully rural ones, might eventually see some shift in traffic patterns due to AI. I am curious to get feedback from this blog from IPS to hear if anybody is seeing anything like the big changes being experienced by MetTel.

The Wagner article also claims that upstream bandwidth is growing faster than downstream, reversing a 30-year design assumption built around heavy downloads. This is something that has been well documented by OpenVault. They’ve been shown that upstream usage has been growing faster than download usage starting in 2024. In the first quarter of 2024, national average upload usage increased by 13.2% compared to 7.7% for download. In the first quarter of this year, average upload growth was at 19.8% while download growth was at 7.8%. OpenVault credits most of the growth in upload usage to computer software synching with data centers.

Wagner claims the upsurge in upstream usage comes from AI inference traffic moving towards the edge, particularly for video processing. What he means by that is big growth coming from uses of video cameras for functions like AI-driven video surveillance at retail locations, camera-equipped wearables, and cloud-based operational technology in applications like oil and gas asset management. I hope that the big national companies that monitor traffic begin tracking this issue. I’d love to hear more about the trends in specific traffic, like video surveillance and wearables.

Network engineers all understand that upload traffic is usually a tiny fraction of download usage, with average download usage a dozen times more than upload. With the possible exception of cable companies, upload usage is largely an afterthought for network engineers, who barely consider it when sizing and designing networks.

I have no doubts that there are localized situations where AI traffic is making a big difference in network traffic. But for ISPs that mostly serve residential and small business customers, I still have to think it’s a tiny, possibly unnoticeable blip.

Broadband Usage 1Q 2026

OpenVault recently published its Broadband Insights Report for the end of the fourth quarter of 2025. One of the most useful statistics from OpenVault is the average monthly broadband usage for households and small businesses in gigabytes. Below is the trend in average monthly U.S. download and upload volumes since the first quarter of 2022.As can be seen in the table, upload usage has been growing at a faster pace than download usage. In this report, OpenVault credits most of the growth in upload usage to computers syncing with the cloud. I expect that the average household would be surprised by the volume of data they are uploading each month and probably wonder what data their computer is uploading.

This quarterly report also highlights two other broadband topics. First, OpenVault compared usage for customers on fiber networks compared to those using cable company HFC networks. Had I been asked to guess at the results of this comparison, I would have guessed the usage would be similar for customers using the two technologies. I was surprised to see the results shown in the following table.OpenVault shows that the average fiber customer downloads 26% more data and uploads 88% more data in a month than a customer on a cable company network. I’ve been thinking about these differences for several days, and I can’t think of any obvious technology reason that would drive the difference between the two groups of customers.

Both groups of customers are mostly urban and suburban. I would guess this isn’t related to price; in most markets, the list price of fiber is lower, although cable companies typically will match or beat a fiber price when asked. My intuition says that this difference is likely due to demographics and not a difference due to the technology. My guess is that fiber attracts younger users and those with families, while older households are sticking with the cable company. For example, I know families with serious gamers who are only interested in fiber. Conversely, there are still over 58 million households with traditional linear cable from a cable company, and I expect they are collectively older than average. It’s an interesting topic for a researcher to tackle. OpenVault is good at analyzing raw usage data, but it has no way to add color to the data based on demographic factors like age and income.

My first reaction when reading this part of the report is that I now expect to see articles that cite this OpenVault report to claim that cable company technology is somehow restricting customer usage. The statistics in this report don’t support such a premise. In fact, the report shows that cable has faster average download speeds.

The OpenVault report also compared the way that homes and businesses use broadband. The analysis showed that households use 23 times more download than upload. For households, video represents 48% of all download data use. Businesses use broadband in a very different way, and businesses use 7.3 times more download than upload. Said a different way, businesses use a lot more upload, with 20% of all business usage used to connect to the cloud. OpenVault reaches a conclusion that I think most ISPs already understand, which is that residential and business customers should be treated differently for network planning.

The Myth of Cellphone-only Users

A recent survey by Pew Research shows that in 2025, 16% of Americans used a smartphone as their only source of broadband. The percentage has grown a bit over previous surveys. I’ve seen articles in the popular press that tout this, and similar surveys, as proof that young people find cellphones to be equivalent to home broadband. These articles imply that, as today’s youth become a bigger segment of the population, broadband will wane in popularity.

Anybody who is touting this idea didn’t take a very hard look at the Pew survey results. A deeper look at the survey results shows that the percentage of people relying on a cellphone as the only source of broadband varies by household income. 34% of people with household income under $30,000 use a cellphone as the only source of broadband, while only 4% of people with a household income over $100,000 choose a cellphone as the only source of broadband. The survey shows that as household income climbs, a greater percentage of households subscribe to broadband. It’s not hard to infer that most of those who live in homes with incomes under $30,000 would choose to buy home broadband if they could afford it.

This is not to say that there are not people who choose to use a cellphone as the only source of broadband. This might include people who are light broadband users and don’t need a lot of data per month. It’s likely that cellphone-only subscribers don’t watch much video or play games using a cellular data plan. But the survey suggests this might be something in the range of 4% of households.

It’s likely that a lot of the people who use a cellphone for broadband have access to WiFi from other broadband connections – at work, school, or other places that offer free WiFi access. We can infer this by comparing the average monthly data usage on cellphones versus home broadband connections.

OpenVault publishes statistics every quarter showing the average broadband usage for homes and small businesses. At the end of 2025, the average U.S. broadband customer used 767.4 gigabytes of data per month, which was 711.5 gigabytes of download data and 55.9 gigabytes of upload data. Average data usage has been climbing steadily every year, and the average household used 69 more gigabytes of data per month at the end of 2025 than they used at the end of 2024.

Contrast this with the average cellphone customer who consumes an average of around 23 gigabytes of cellular data per month from the cellular network. Cellphone plans don’t support the kind of data used by the average household, and most plans, even those touted as “unlimited”, are capped or have restricted speeds after reaching around 50 gigabytes of data usage in a month. The chances are high that the average cellphone user consumes a lot more data than the national average of 23 gigabytes per month, with the extra usage coming from connections to broadband-backed WiFi. Several recent surveys show that the average cell phone user in the country uses their cellphone for over 5 hours per day. They are not spending that much time connected to cellular data.

There are other reasons why a cellphone is not a substitute for a broadband connection. A cellphone data plan is not adequate to support a household with multiple broadband users. A cellphone data plan can’t support somebody working or schooling from home. Try writing a term paper or creating a complex spreadsheet on a cellphone. While a cellphone can be tethered to a computer or other device for these kinds of functions, most cellphone plans cap the amount of tethered usage to 20 gigabytes per month or less. The average home broadband connection uses more data in the average day than what most cellphone users consume from the cellular networks in a month.

The Pew survey demonstrates a strong relationship between income and broadband usage. A lot of people from low-income households choose a smartphone as the only source of broadband because they can’t afford both the cellphone and the home broadband connection. It’s fully understandable why somebody would choose a cellphone if they can only afford one connection. There is a lot of value in the mobility function of a smartphone that can provide voice and broadband from anywhere. But as household incomes rise, the Pew survey shows an increasing number of homes choose to buy both a smartphone and a broadband connection.

Broadband Usage in 4Q 2025

OpenVault recently published its Broadband Insights Report for the end of the fourth quarter of 2025. One of the most useful statistics from OpenVault is the average monthly broadband usage per household in gigabytes. Below is the trend in average monthly U.S. download and upload volumes since the third quarter of 2021. These averages include broadband used by residential and small business customers.The average U.S. broadband customer used 59 more downloaded gigabytes and 10 more uploaded gigabits per month than a year earlier. This growth means continued pressure on broadband networks because if we assume roughly 120 million broadband subscribers nationwide, this growth means over 8.3 billion more gigabytes of data cross the Internet than a year earlier.

As can be seen in the table above, upload usage has been growing at a faster pace than download usage. In a recent quarterly report, OpenVault credited the growth of upload usage to the increasing usage of video calls, cloud backup, IoT uplinks, and similar uses. To put the 10-gigabyte increase in average upload into context, it’s the equivalent of every household uploading an additional 7 standard definition movie files or 3 high definition movie files every month compared to a year earlier. I think the average household would be surprised by the volume of data they are uploading each month.

The report made an interesting comparison between HFC technology and fiber for an unnamed cable company. When comparing customers that subscribed to equivalent fast download speeds, the average customer using cable technology uploaded 58 gigabytes, while the average fiber customer uploaded 93 gigabytes. Clearly, the slow upload speeds on cable (an average of 17.3 Mbps) are restricting uploading compared to fiber customers with symmetrical data plans.

Another interesting statistic is the percentage of U.S. subscribers at different speed tiers. For the last several years, there has been a steady migration of subscribers from slower speed tiers to the fastest tiers, and there is continued erosion in customers subscribing to speeds under 100 Mbps. What’s most interesting about the two years is a big jump in subscribers in the 200-499 Mbps tier and a decrease in subscribers buying speeds faster than 500 Mbps. My best guess is that this is reflecting the continued migration of millions of homes to FWA wireless. Those households seem to be willing to accept slower speeds as a trade-off for the lower prices.

One thing this table demonstrates is the absurdity of the FCC’s current definition of broadband at 100/20 Mbps. At the end of 2025, 87.4% of U.S. broadband subscribers are buying a product with speeds of 200 Mbps download or faster.

OpenVault always includes other interesting statistics in its quarterly reports:

  • The annual average increase in usage is growing over time. In 2022, households used 50 gigabytes more than the previous year. That’s increased to 54 GB in 2023, 57 GB in 2024, and 69 GB in 2025.
  • Super Power Users (those that use more than 2 terabytes of data per month grew by 22.5% in 2025, to become 7.4% of all households.

Median usage grew from 461.2 GB in 2024 to 531.8 GB in 2025. The median is the number where 50% of customers use less and 50% use more. That’s an increase of 15.3%, which is a faster growth rate than for average usage (9.9%). OpenVault credits the faster increase in median speeds to faster growth than average for customers with smaller monthly usage.

Broadband Usage 3Q 2025

OpenVault recently published its Broadband Insights Report for the end of the third quarter of 2025. OpenVault is documenting the continued growth in broadband usage by U.S. households.

One of the most useful statistics from OpenVault is the average monthly broadband usage per household in gigabytes. Below is the trend in average monthly U.S. download and upload volumes since the third quarter of 2021. These averages include broadband used by residential and small business customers.The average U.S. broadband customer used 43 more downloaded gigabytes and 7 more uploaded gigabits per month than a year earlier. This growth means continued pressure on broadband networks because if we assume roughly 120 million broadband subscribers nationwide, this growth means over 6 billion more gigabytes of data are used each month than a year earlier.

One of the most interesting things about the second quarter this year is that the overall average broadband usage was lower than the second quarter, something that hasn’t happened since 2019.

As can be seen in the table above, upload usage has been growing at a faster pace than download usage. In a recent quarterly report, OpenVault credited the growth of upload usage to the increasing usage of video calls, cloud backup, IoT uplinks, and similar uses. To put the 7-gigabyte increase in average upload into context, it’s the equivalent of every household uploading an additional 5 standard definition movie files or 2 high definition movie files every month compared to a year earlier. I think the average household would be surprised by the volume of data they are uploading each month.

Another interesting statistic is the percentage of U.S. subscribers at different speed tiers. For the last several years, there has been a steady migration of subscribers from slow speed tiers to the fastest tiers. The current report documents a big jump in subscribers in the 200-499 Mbps tier and a decrease in the 500-999 Mbps and the 1 Gbps+ tiers. I have to wonder is this is the impact of millions of homes migrating from cable broadband to FWA wireless. Customers seem to be making the change to get a substantially lower price and seem willing to sacrifice speed for price. We’ll have to see how this trend continues, but it’s the first break in the upward increase in the fastest speed tiers.

OpenVault always includes other interesting statistics in its quarterly reports:

  • 39% of Gen Alpha teens spend over three hours a day gaming, and only 30% of this age group watches TV, and only 28% listen to music or podcasts. Over time, this could mean a huge shift in the demand for traditional entertainment.
  • 89% of U.S. households now subscribe to at least one streaming service, which is very close to the percentage of homes that have broadband.
  • While average usage dropped a bit from the second to the third quarter, the median household usage increased from 431.4 GB to 438.9 GB.

Broadband Usage 2Q 2025

OpenVault recently published its Broadband Insights Report for the end of the second quarter of 2025. OpenVault is documenting the continued growth in broadband usage by U.S. households.

One of the most useful statistics from OpenVault is the average monthly broadband usage per household in gigabytes. Below is the trend in average monthly U.S. download and upload volumes since the first quarter of 2021. These averages include broadband used by residential and small business customers.The average U.S. broadband customer used 71 more downloaded gigabytes and over 7 more uploaded gigabits per month than a year earlier. This growth means continued pressure on broadband networks because if we assume roughly 120 million broadband subscribers nationwide, this growth means over 9.4 billion more gigabytes of data are used each month than a year earlier.

One of the most interesting things about the second quarter this year is that the overall average broadband usage was slightly higher than in the first quarter. Except for the COVID year of 2020, OpenVault has always documented a seasonal drop in usage from the first to second quarter. That’s mostly due to the OpenVault numbers being measured at the end of each quarter, and schools being out in June. But this year, there was no drop off. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues and if it represents an unexpected growth of bandwidth usage compared to recent years.

As can be seen in the table above, upload usage has been growing at a faster pace than download usage. In its previous quarterly report, OpenVault credited the 18% growth of upload usage to the increasing usage of video calls, cloud backup, IoT uplinks, and similar uses. To put the 7-gigabyte increase in average upload into context, it’s the equivalent of every household uploading an additional 5 standard definition movie files or 2 high definition movie files every month compared to a year earlier. I think the average household would be surprised by the volume of data they are uploading each month.

This report included something new, and OpenVault looked at the performance nationwide of broadband cable modems. Their findings go a long way towards explaining why a lot of customers complain about broadband performance. OpenVault shows that 13% of all broadband modems are experiencing problems. The report showed that:

  • 47% of modems were critical, meaning they are significantly impaired and don’t work as intended.
  • 95% of all modems experience moderate impairment.
  • 67% of modems have no usage on at least one upload or download channel, meaning degraded performance.
  • 99% of modems were described as flapping, meaning they go in and out of service.

OpenVault always includes other interesting statistics in its quarterly reports:

  • 5% of broadband subscribers now use more than 2 terabytes of data per month.
  • Median broadband speeds are also increasing and were at 431 gigabytes at the end of the second quarter. That means half of homes use less than 431 gigabytes and half of homes use more.

Will FWA Run Out of Gas?

You probably haven’t noticed, but the press is no longer full of articles claiming that FWA cellular broadband is a poor broadband choice for customers. For several years, there was a constant stream of quotes by executives of big cable companies and telcos saying that FWA was a flash in the pan that was only selling quickly because of low prices. They said that FWA performance was erratic and cellular carriers didn’t have enough excess capacity to provide a reliable broadband connection. There were many predictions made that FWA would plateau as word of mouth spread that FWA performance was substandard.

But that plateau hasn’t happened. As you can see in the table below, the recent quarterly growth of FWA has held steady for each of the three major FWA providers. Below the FWA numbers are the overall net new customers of the publicly traded cable companies and telcos. The big telcos have finally turned the corner and are installing more fiber customers than they are disconnecting DSL. All of the big cable companies are losing customers each quarter. Not reflected in these numbers are customers being added by fiber overbuilders, and the growth of fixed wireless and satellite broadband. Even considering the growth of the industry not shown on the table, it’s clear that FWA cellular is still dominating the broadband industry in terms of customer acquisition. FWA cellular will eventually plateau, but it doesn’t look like we are close to that day yet. The FWA carriers got a recent burst when Congress gave the FCC authority to renew spectrum auctions and to consider allocating as much as 800 megahertz of spectrum for 5G usage over the next five years. Leading up to that legislation, cellular carriers had started to beat the “we’re out of spectrum’ drum and claiming that the U.S. was losing the 5G battle to China. That argument worked in the past and seemingly has worked again.

I have to think that a big part of the hope for new spectrum is to support FWA. There is a huge usage difference between a normal cellphone customer and an FWA customer. Various industry statistics show that the average cellphone customer uses a little over 20 gigabytes of data per month, while OpenVault says that the average home broadband customer used 663 gigabytes per month at the end of the first quarter of 2025. Not only do FWA customers use thirty times more data than a cellphone customer, they use it in a very different way, with home and work computers connected to broadband for hours on end, while cellphone data usage tends to happen in shorter bursts.

The cable companies and telcos were not wrong when they said that cell towers weren’t originally designed to do home broadband, but with over 13.4 million FWA customers, it’s clear that the cell carriers have figured out a way to make it work. The one glaring weakness of FWA is that carriers will still cut FWA speeds to near zero any time that a cell site gets too busy – carriers are going to continue to prioritize cell customers over FWA customers. But the carriers are considering dedicating spectrum just for FWA, which would eliminate this issue. That will be a lot easier to do after more spectrum comes onto the market.

I’ve always followed predictions of where the broadband industry is headed. A decade ago, there were zero predictions that cellular carriers would capture a significant portion of the home broadband market. Cell carriers have offered cellular hot spots for many years, but the products weren’t popular because of slow speeds and high prices, with most hotspot plans with monthly data caps nearly identical to cellphones.

Verizon recently said it has a goal of reaching 8-9 million FWA customers by 2030. T-Mobile has a more aggressive plan to reach 12 million customers by the end of 2028. The industry segment is far from running out of gas.

Broadband Usage 1Q 2025

OpenVault recently published its Broadband Insights Report for the end of the first quarter of 2025. OpenVault is documenting the continued growth in broadband usage by U.S. households.

One of the most useful statistics from OpenVault is the average monthly broadband usage per customers in gigabytes. Below is the trend in average monthly U.S. download and upload volumes since the first quarter of 2021. These averages include broadband used by residential and small business customers.The average U.S. broadband customer used 50 more downloaded gigabytes and 7 more uploaded gigabits per month than a year earlier. The interesting trend to note is that average download usage has grown roughly 50 gigabits each year since 2021.

This growth means continued pressure on broadband networks because if we assume roughly 120 million broadband subscribers nationwide, this growth means over 6.9 billion more gigabytes of data used each month than a year earlier.

The report this quarter concentrated on the growth of upload usage. As can be seen in the table above, the rate of growth of average upload usage grew at 8% in 2022, with the rate of growth increasing each year. OpenVault credits the 18% growth of upload usage between 2024 and 2025 to the increasing usage of video calls, cloud backup, IoT uplinks, and similar uses.

This growth in upload usage highlights the increasing value in having adequate upload speeds for both residences and businesses. To put the 7-gigabyte increase in average upload into context, it’s the equivalent of every household uploading 5 standard definition movie files or 2 high definition movie files every month. I think the average household would be surprised about how much data they are uploading.

Another interesting statistic from OpenVault is the change over time in broadband subscriptions. For years, the trend has been growth in the percentage of broadband customers subscribing to faster speeds. The following table documents a big increase in the percentage of people from 2024 and 2025 subscribing to speeds faster than 500 Mbps. The big shift in the last year is customers upgrading to speeds of at least 500 Mbps. OpenVault always includes other interesting statistics in its quarterly reports:

  • 9% of broadband subscribers now use more than 2 terabytes of data per month. 0.16% of homes now use more than 5 terabytes per month.
  • Business peak usage has been growing at a faster rate than residential usage. The peak usage measures the busiest hour of the day. Business peak upload usage grew 103%, and peak download by 105% since 2021. During that same time, residential peak upload grew 76%, and peak download by 59%.

Broadband Usage 4Q 2024

OpenVault recently published its Broadband Insights Report for the end of the fourth quarter of 2024. OpenVault is documenting the continued growth in broadband usage by U.S. households.

I think one of the most useful statistics from OpenVault is the average monthly broadband usage per customers in gigabytes. Below is the trend in average monthly U.S. download and upload volumes since the fourth quarter of 2020. These are the average amount of data used combined for all residential and small business customers.

The average U.S. broadband customer used 51 more downloaded gigabytes and 6 more uploaded gigabytes per month than a year earlier. The interesting trend to note is that average download usage has grown roughly 50 gigabits each year since 2020.

This growth means continued pressure on broadband networks because if we assume roughly 120 million broadband subscribers nationwide, this means over 5.2 billion more gigabytes of data used each month than a year earlier.

The growth in what OpenVault calls power users is even more dramatic than overall bandwidth growth. Below is the percentage of broadband customers who use more than 1 terabyte of data per month and those using more than 2 terabytes. These numbers show the potential harm created when ISPs place data caps on monthly usage.OpenVault always includes other interesting statistics in its quarterly reports:

  • Median household broadband usage was 461.2 gigabytes – half of homes use more broadband than the median, and half use less. The gap between the median and average usage is explained by the large number of power users.
  • The report includes an interesting graph showing the nationwide broadband usage on Christmas, which is the busiest broadband day each year. The comparison between 2020, 2022, and 2024 is dramatic.

Broadband Usage 3Q 2024

OpenVault recently published its Broadband Insights Report for the end of the third quarter of 2024. OpenVault is documenting the continued growth in broadband usage by U.S. households.

I think one of the most useful statistics from OpenVault is the average monthly broadband usage per customers in gigabytes. Below is the trend in average monthly U.S. download and upload volumes since the third quarter of 2020. These are the average amount of data used combined for all residential and small business customers. Over the last four years the average monthly download and upload usage has increased roughly 53%.

The average U.S. broadband customer used 35 more downloaded gigabytes and 5 uploaded gigabits per month than a year earlier. This means continued pressure on broadband networks because if we assume roughly 120 million broadband subscribers, this equates to over 4.8 billion more gigabytes of data used each month than a year earlier.

This table raises an interesting question if the growth in broadband usage is slowing down. It would be rash to draw that conclusion by only comparing the third quarters of 2023 and 2024, but a slowdown would be obvious over the next several quarters.

The growth in what OpenVault calls power users is even more dramatic than overall bandwidth growth. Below is the percentage of broadband customers who use more than 1 terabyte of data per month and those using more than 2 terabytes. These numbers show the potential harm created when ISPs place data caps on monthly usage.OpenVault always includes other interesting statistics in its quarterly reports:

  • The report shows that the average rural customer uses only slightly less average broadband than urban households.
  • Median household broadband usage was 389.3 gigabytes – half of homes use more broadband than the median, and half use less. The higher overall average is explained by the large number of power users.

The report includes a section that shows there is no longer a strong correlation between household incomes and data consumption as was seen in past years. Interestingly, in the third quarter, the group with the highest average download usage was households with incomes under $50,000.