New Report Shows Data Consumption on Fiber Dominates Cable

WASHINGTON, May 14, 2026 – In a recent report, OpenVault found that fiber internet is rapidly outpacing cable internet in terms of data consumption at peak times. 

The median usage for fiber subscribers is more than triple that of Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) subscribers, OpenVault found.

OpenVault, an analytics company led by CEO Mark Trudeau, also found that more than a third of fiber customers are consuming at least 1 TB of data per month, an increase over users on DOCSIS. Downstream fiber usage also outpaced DOCSIS subscribers by 26.1%. This includes during peak hours from 6-10 pm, as downstream traffic was as much as 3.6 times higher on fiber networks compared to DOCSIS networks. 

Data shows that the dominant upstreaming category is cloud sync, especially with Chat GPT and other AI models. AI has become more prominent among users, taking 15-16% of upload volume in addition to 25.5% of upload traffic at the Gbps+ tier.

Last month, fiber broadband crossed a major threshold in uploads, reaching 106.7 GB per month, and the company expects continued growth. The report noted, “As fiber footprints expand, operators should anticipate a structural uplift in overall network demand.” OpenVault plans to be ready to handle the increased demand in network use.

Fiber internet is able to handle more users than cable while still offering a more reliable and faster connection. As daily use of the internet increasingly grows, there is a demand for access to higher speed and higher capacity networks.