MIAMI—The first-quarter edition of the OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report highlights a number of important trends in broadband usage, including the finding that median downstream fiber consumption is 3.15 times that of DOCSIS-based cable broadband networks during the four-hour evening period.
The study found that the highest ratio between fiber and DOCSIS median downstream use during Q1 2026 was 3.6 times at 6 p.m.
The report also notes that the widest absolute gap during any daypart is at 8 p.m., when median downstream fiber usage is 1.346 GB for fiber and DOCSIS is at 0.456 GB—a difference of 0.890 GB.
Using data collected by OpenVault’s network-agnostic broadband optimization solutions, the 1Q26 OVBI examines how fiber is becoming a pivotal factor in new consumption trends. The report also uses data from Aispire, a provider of consumption-centric intelligence, to provide insights into applications driving growth, particularly in the upstream.
Among the 1Q26 OVBI findings:
- Power Users: More than one-third (33.8%) of fiber customers are consuming 1 Terabyte or more of data per month, an increase of 35.1% over the 25.0% of Power Users on DOCSIS networks.
- Downstream: Average downstream fiber usage was 837.0 Gigabytes, 26.1% more than the 664.0 GB recorded by DOCSIS subscribers.
- Usage Drivers: Aispire data shows that cloud sync—especially for ChatGPT reasoning models, MS365 Copilot, Apple Intelligence and agentic AI workflows—is the dominant upstream category at 15–16% of classified upload volume, and up to 25.5% of upload traffic at the 1 Gbps-plus tier.
- Residential vs. Non-Residential: Residential subscribers run at a 23-to-1 download-to-upload ratio, with video comprising 48% of downloads. Nonresidential subscribers run at a 7.3-to-1 ratio, with cloud connections accounting for 20% of uploads.
“While almost half of residential traffic is video downloads, non-residential subscribers use cloud services that require symmetric fiber. Thus, the two market segments should be modeled separately for capacity planning,” the report noted. Further, “as fiber footprints expand, operators should anticipate a structural uplift in overall network demand.”
The entire report is available here.
OpenVault executives will be at Fiber Connect 2026 May 17-20 in Nashville, Tenn., and at ANGACOM May 19-21 in Cologne, Germany. Meetings at both shows can be arranged via email.
OpenVault Vice President, Operations Lauren Trudeau will speak on the “Leading the Future: Where Innovation Meets Influence” panel on Wednesday, May 20 (3 p.m. CET) on the ANGACOM Innovation Stage.
