The analysis showed that the difference in usage between cord-cutters and average subscribers rose from 14% six months before the event to 20% in the month immediately prior and 30% in the month that the cord was cut.
Research from OpenVault has revealed that broadband usage patterns are providing signs of an imminent further rise in cord-cutting.The analytics and technology solutions providers Q2 2019 OVBI report tracked how thousands of subscribers who shifted to broadband-only packages during the first half of 2019 exhibited steadily increasing broadband consumption in the months preceding the change.
The analysis showed that the difference in usage between cord-cutters and average subscribers rose from 14% six months before the event to 20% in the month immediately prior and 30% in the month that the cord was cut. In the following three months, the difference rose to nearly 70%.
Using aggregate consumption of millions of subscribers, the OVBI report also revealed what OpenVault said was a significant difference between internet-only households and those who have a bundled package of pay-TV and broadband services. Among Internet-only households, average bandwidth consumption in 2Q19 was 390.42 GBytes, while bundled subscribers consumed, on average, 210.89 GB of data in 2Q19 a difference of 85%.
The data also showed that average broadband usage in European markets increased by more than 28% from Q2 2018 to Q2 2019, slightly ahead of the 25% YOY growth in the United States. Average downstream usage in Europe continued its annual growth trend of 30% in 2019, in which upstream usage grew 14%. The share of European subscribers consuming more than 250 GB was 22.13% as of June 2019, up nearly 47% from June 2018.
Usage-based billing (UBB) was being deployed to limit those consuming over a terabyte of data per month, defined as power users. When compared with subscribers on flat-rate billing (FRB) plans, UBB subscribers were 23% less likely to exceed 1 TByte of usage and 61% less likely to exceed 2 TBytes. A higher percentage of FRB subscribers were found to be provisioned for lower-speed packages compared to UBB subscribers and among FRB subscribers, 41% were provisioned for speeds of 30 Mbps or less, compared with 13% among UBB subscribers.
Commenting on the report Josh Barstow, Executive Vice President of corporate strategy and business development for OpenVault said: While usage-based billing often is considered as a revenue-enhancing tool, the reality is that it spurs subscribers to find harmony between their broadband speeds and their usage patterns.
As more and more subscribers exhibit cord-cutting behaviour, visibility into usage behaviour and sound-based billing plans based billing plans will help operators to manage increasingly busy networks and ensure subscriber satisfaction.
