Nearly a decade after its introduction, gigabit-speed broadband is a mainstream consumer service, with 32.1% U.S. homes having internet wherewithal of 1 Gbps or greater, according to OpenVault.
The Hoboken, New Jersey-based broadband analytics software and service provider's Q3 2023 "Broadband Insights Report" found that 1-gig subscribers in the U.S. have more than doubled since the company published its quartly report a year ago — 15.4% of users had speeds of 1 Gigabit per second at that time.
In the first quarter of 2023, OpenVault pegged the 1 Gbps subscriber level at 18.1%.
The spike comes as Comcast and Charter Communications have embarked on aggressive DOCSIS 4.0 network upgrades, kicking up the baseline speeds for their legacy DOCSIS 3.1 networks as they go.
As it finds every quarter, OpenVault determined that data use has once again increased — its up to 555.2 gigabytes per month on a weighted basis across usage- and flat-rate broadband plans vs. 495.5 GB in the third quarter of 2022.
Meanwhile, the share of U.S. internet subscribers who are “power users” (consume 1 terabyte or more of data each month) and “extreme power users” (use at least 2 terabytes) has increased not explosively but measurably in the last 12 months, OpenVault said.
Compare Q3 2023 to Q3 2022 below:
