Continuing a three-year trend of record-breaking percentage growth, broadband upstream usage increased almost 20 per cent year-over-year in Q2 2026, according to the latest OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report.

In the the quarterly report, titled Upstream Ascending, OpenVault research shows that upstream consumption grew at a rate of 19.2 per cent in Q2, following increases of 17.9 per cent in 2024-25 and 15.9 per cent in 2023-24. Average upstream usage rose 9.3 GB per subscriber, the largest Q2-to-Q2 increase ever, to 58.2 GB per subscriber per month.

The 19.2 per cent annual increase in Q2 was more than 3X the 6.1 per cent rate of downstream growth, powering the upstream’s rise to 8.2 per cent of broadband providers’ total traffic mix. Over the past seven years the ratio of downstream to upstream consumption has fallen 32.5 per cent, from 16.6:1 in Q2 2019 to 11.2:1 in the quarter ended June 30th. The OVBI uses data collected by OpenVault’s network-agnostic broadband optimization solutions.

“Cloud sync, always-on connected devices, and a new layer of AI-assisted workflows treat the upload channel as a first class path,” the report noted. “This growth will increase as operators prioritize upstream headroom to accommodate increasing traffic. Return path capacity, long treated as secondary, must be freed from performance constraints.”

Among the Q2 2026 OVBI findings:

• Average Monthly Usage was 711 GB per subscriber, an increase of 7.1 per cent over the 664.2 GB recorded in the second quarter of 2025.
• Median Monthly Usage of 482.3 GB represented an 11.8 per cent increase over the 431.4 GB of Q2 2025, indicating a broadening of consumption across the subscriber base.
• Super Power Users of 2 TB per month or more rose to a 5.86 per cent of all subscribers, a 16.1 per cent year-over-year increase.
• DOCSIS Upstream Speed continues to zoom toward new milestones. Average upstream speed in Q2 2o26 was 47.8 Mbps, a 33.7 per cent increase over the prior year.
• Fibre Upstream Average Usage of 94.1 GB per subscriber was 61.6 per cent greater than DOCSIS upstream consumption (58.2 GB), continuing a trend of significantly higher fibre upstream traffic.

Other posts by :

1. AST SpaceMobile gets permission for giant factory
2. Questions over AST SpaceMobile’s spending plans
3. Bank: AST SpaceMobile is favoured
4. Amazon Leo gains South Africa link
5. Eutelsat wants an extra 528 satellites
6. FCC approves orbital space mirrors
7. Analysts: “Unknown Unknowns for SpaceX”
8. Ligado’s bankruptcy clean-up continues
9. Arianespace to offer ‘rideshare’ launches

Categories: Articles, Broadband, Consumer Behaviour, Research

Tags: docsis, fibre, openvault