MIAMI—New data from OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) for Q4 2025, indicates that has broadband usage continues to rise, there is growing demand for faster upload speeds and capacity.
In the report OVBI conducted what it is calling a first-ever point-in-time comparison of Fiber vs. DOCSIS subscribers in a selected broadband system to see how usage was impacted by increased upstream speeds. OVBI found that in the final quarter of 2025, subscribers on a fiber network with symmetrical speeds of 677 Mbps consumed 93.0 GB of upstream bandwidth. Fiber usage was 66% higher than the 56.0 GB used by subscribers on the same system’s DOCSIS networks, which were provisioned at 17.3 Mbps, on average, in the upstream.
“As operators deploy higher-split architectures, expand usable spectrum, and leverage tools such as Profile Management Applications (PMA) to optimize modulation profiles and unlock additional upstream capacity, constraints on DOCSIS networks are steadily easing,” the report notes. “The Fiber comparison suggests that latent upstream demand already exists on DOCSIS networks and is likely to be activated as performance barriers are removed – resulting in rapid scaling of upstream consumption that further shifts.”
Overall, the report found that upstream usage continued to outpace all other metrics in 2025. The year-end average of 55.86 GB across fiber and DOCSIS platforms represented a 21.7% year-over-year increase over the 45.9 GB record in 2024 and a 16.4% increase over 3Q25’s 47.98 GB.
Other year-over-year findings included:
- Average monthly usage rose 9.9% to 767.4 GB, the first time average usage has exceeded 700 GB.
- Average downstream usage of 711.4 GB in 4Q25 itself exceeded the 698.2 GB average total usage at the end of 2024.
- Median usage of 531.8 GB was 15.3% higher than the 481.2 GB median recorded in 4Q24, a rate of increase that was almost equal to the median increases of the previous two years combined (15.7%).
The 4Q25 OVBI also explores the need for providers to be mindful that steady percentage growth figures can mask progressively larger traffic volumes that place increased stress on provider networks. The report notes that even though 4Q25 9.9% growth was up only 1% year-over-year, the absolute increase in traffic traversing broadband infrastructures averaged 69.0 GB per subscriber, compared to the 57.0 GB increase evidenced from 4Q23 to 4Q24.
OpenVault CEO and founder Mark Trudeau will discuss the findings and their implications for the industry on a webinar on Thursday, February 26 at 11 a.m. EST. Registration is at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bIy9kBNLTS2fl-lzM2Wigw.
The entire report is at https://openvault.com/resources/ovbi/.
