I was recently asked an interesting question, “It’s easy to understand the growth in download bandwidth due to people streaming higher quality video and similar uses. Why do you think upload broadband usage is growing even faster?”

I first had to check to see if upload bandwidth usage is growing faster than download usage – and it is growing a little faster. According to OpenVault, average upload usage has increased 290% since 2019, while average download usage has increased by 270%. From 2022 to 2023, average upload bandwidth usage increased by 13.3%, while download usage increased by 9.3%. Average U.S. upload usage surpassed 40 gigabytes per customer per month at the end of 2023.

There are some obvious reasons why upload bandwidth usage has been growing. Compared to before the pandemic, Zoom and other video calls have become common. There is now a substantial percentage of people who work from home. Several studies I’ve seen and surveys we’ve conducted show that over 30% of homes have somebody who works at home at least part of each week – with many folks now working from home full time.

Much of the software that we use has migrated to the cloud, and that means folks routinely save documents and spreadsheets online when they work from home. Machine-to-machine language, where our computers and smart devices automatically contact websites is one of the fastest subsets of data usage. We’re using a lot more security cameras. Gaming has moved to the cloud.

But as I’ve been thinking about upload usage, I also think there has been a lot of pent-up demand that is getting slowly resolved as ISPs improve upload speeds. I talk to people about their home bandwidth a lot, and I realized that I probably know a dozen people who have told me that they have to ration upload broadband.

To give one of the more extreme examples, I have a friend in a household with two adults working at home and two older children who often game during the daytime. My friend has to routinely join web video session by cellphone because the home broadband can’t support an additional upload link. You might suppose this home is using a slow technology, but they’ve bought the fastest speed available from a major cable company. The upload bandwidth is just not enough to satisfy this home. If the cable companies upgrades the upload speed, or if fiber becomes available, this home is going to see a big spike in upload usage when family members are no longer blocked. They are routinely using all of the upload bandwidth available today but want to use a lot more.

It turns out that I know a lot of people who routinely have trouble connecting to video calls, and they talk about rationing upload speed. That’s one of the interesting things about this – folks who don’t have enough upload speed are fully aware of the situation. They routinely ask who else in the family is online before connecting. They ask other family members to cut back on usage when they need to make an important connection. It’s classic rationing behavior.

Businesses have this problem to an even greater extent than households. In a lot of communities, businesses are offered the same broadband packages that are sold to homes (but at a much higher price). Many businesses use upload bandwidth far more heavily than homes. They might use VoIP for multiple phone lines. They often want to have multiple people streaming at the same time. A huge percentage of business software and functions use cloud software that needs a constant upload path. Many businesses routinely open a VPN to connect with a distance corporate server. Many of the businesses we interview are acutely aware of the constraints placed on them by inadequate upload speeds.

We’re seeing ISPs bringing faster upload speeds, and this will ease a lot of these problems. Cable companies are upgrading upload speeds in some markets using mid-split upgrades or upgrading to early versions of DOCSIS 4.0. A lot of fiber is being built that offers symmetrical broadband speeds. The upcoming rural broadband grants are going to displace a lot of older and slower technology. As pent-up upload demand is resolved, we should continue to see average upload usage growing faster than download usage over the next few years.