Altice USA said its average broadband-only user gobbled up 556 gigabytes of data each month in the fourth quarter and that 14% of its customers exceeded 1 terabyte of 1s and 0s monthly consumption.

According to Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei, video streaming remained the biggest driver of the surge in internet usage. 

Also read: Altice USA Accelerates Fiber Buildout as Broadband Slide Continues

With high-bandwidth video technology standards including 4K and HDR becoming ubiquitous, and cord-cutting customers increasingly forsaking the managed networks of telecom company pay TV suppliers for the open internet to get their TV, Altice's gawdy user numbers don't appear, at least on the surface, to be all that surprising. 

But when you consider the recent growth in usage, the ol' eyebrows do get raised a little. 

In May 2019, broadband networks consultancy OpenVault said that nationally, internet-only homes were using 395.7 GB a month, on average. 

A year ago, OpenVault published a report suggesting that by the end of 2021, the average U.S. broadband consuming household -- including those subscribers who took video over managed network from their ISP -- would consume as much as 650 GB each lunar cycle. 

The level of demand on Altice USA's networks didn't match that lofty prediction, but the cable operator's current customer usage levels are being used to justify the company's huge ongoing investments into fiber-to-the-home infrastructure. 

"All of this gives us confidence we're making the right decision focusing on fiber to prove -- to future proof our network given it's the best technology that exists to support high levels of throughput and data usage with very low latency and very high reliability of service," Goei said Wednesday during Altice USA's Q4 earnings conference call with equity analysts. 

It’s hard to predict what will happen next in the streaming wars. Just when the world was beginning to wonder if the market and consumers were approaching “peak subscription,” the pandemic hit and the streaming wars were given a new lease of life. 

Netflix — arguably the biggest name in streaming — announced that it acquired 15.7 million new subscribers in the first three months of 2020, almost double the number it gained during the same period in 2019. More recently, its competitor Disney Plus reached 100 million subscribers just 16 months after its launch: a number that Netflix took 10 years to reach, albeit while pioneering the burgeoning streaming market.

It was an unanticipated but welcome boost. But it will be difficult to sustain this level of growth.

A Pain in the CPAs 

Streaming services are caught in a marketing arms race. They are under immense pressure to grow their subscriber base and keep shareholders happy — but the wider they cast their net searching for prospective new users, the higher the CPA (cost per acquisition) typically becomes. This is clearly an unsustainable model for long-term growth. Like in any arms race, the consequences for those involved are often MAD, or mutually assured destruction. 

Instead of attritional marketing warfare, streaming brands need to identify clever ways to decrease churn and increase engagement. And the best way to maximize efficiency is to craft experiences that leverage data-driven personalization.  

Here are three things to consider when using personalization to make scaling subscribers more palatable and effective.  

Leverage optimized landing pages and sign-up flows: Personalization within the streaming platforms is an effective way to reduce churn and it should define the experience from the very first touchpoint. 

Landing pages should be at the forefront of this strategy. They should be customized and personalized to reflect a user’s unique journey. If someone arrives on a landing page after clicking on an advert for a specific show, then this show should be the thematic template for the page and define the copy and hero images used — with other personalized content suggestions orbiting dynamically around it.  

The landing page should also have a close relationship with the sign-up process. Poorly signposted sign-up processes quickly spark friction and frustrate users. 

The UX of the signup process is crucial. Brands should remember that:

• Visual progress indicators are more intuitive than text-based progress indicators; 

• It must be clear what subscription tier users are signing up for;  

• Keeping a consistent message across the platform for users with no active subscription is the best way to re-focus these users to sign up

Beyond this, streaming services should recognize that for customers, signing up doesn’t end with the payment form. New trial sign-ups should be optimize through personalized experiences, customer data mining and predictive modeling in order to execute more efficient media across platforms.

Personalizing recommendations: From Spotify, to YouTube or Amazon, consumers expect to be met with intelligent recommendations based on their preferences. Research from Accenture found that 91% of consumers are more likely to engage with brands that provide offers personalized to them. 

Streaming services are broadly wise to the powers of personalization. In 2019, Netflix experimented with an AI tool which would edit trailers based on user data, so different users would see different trailers depending on their likes and preferences. 

While personalized ads and landing pages may get users into your ecosystem, providing reliable recommendations is a strong way to build trust, and consequently longevity, between the streaming brand and the user. The services that can crack when and what content to present to each user will do better at retention.

Shifting the focus to LTV and predictive modeling of customer data: Streaming services also need to have a holistic view of their customers and their habits. Understandably each service sits on a treasure trove of data: what shows are being watched, did they complete or drop off, and what did they watch next?

The main point here, though, is not how much fancy data services have, but how that data is activated to make smarter decisions within their customer acquisition strategies. This should naturally lead brands to be more inquisitive and open to a lifetime value (LTV) based marketing model.

At this moment in time, every advertiser should be considering moving to an LTV model. It will help take a brand’s marketing strategy from short-term metrics to a long-term advanced approach to acquisition.

There are five steps to take here:

1. Unifying customer data 
2. Data preparation and modeling
3. Understanding the drivers of LTV
4. Understanding customer clusters and audiences
5. Activation in audience and bidding

With LTV, brands can better target high-value audiences more likely to subscribe to their service. Campaigns, ads and keywords are measured by their LTV performance using a data-driven conversion attribution model, and the brand can optimize activity accordingly. The LTV metric can also be used for automated bidding, to get the right messages to the right customers at the right time.

This is a hyper-competitive moment in the streaming wars. To continue to grow, streaming brands will need to embrace marketing tactics that combat churn and engage new users — all without getting caught up in a marketing arms race. This means investing in understanding what customers are doing on their services — and crafting experiences that reflect these needs from the very first moment. 

Kris Tait is managing director of the U.S. business at global digital marketing agency Croud. 

As Americans move encase to conduct their work, schooling and overall social interaction at home via the internet, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, residential broadband usage is soaring.

OpenVault, which offers data, insights and consulting to broadband service providers, said that average downstream residential data usage for urban dwellers reached 5.16 gigabytes on Tuesday, March 10, the day after dire warnings from the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization and other health authorities inspired many companies to issue work-from-home edicts and many school districts to shut down.

Average downstream usage for urban dwellers on Monday, March 16, also clocked in around 5.1 GB, more than double the amount of average data consumed nine weeks earlier, on Monday Jan. 20. Monday’s average downstream usage was 98% higher than the most recent baseline Monday, March 9, a day when the stock market endured a record plunge and seemed to accelerate concern about the spread of coronavirus in the U.S.

Average upstream usage surged to 0.326 GB Monday, OpenVault said, up 68% over Monday March 16.

Also read: Streaming Video Usage to Spike 61% Amid Social Distancing: Nielsen

The figures are based on "hundreds of thousands" of high-speed internet subscribers in the U.S., OpenVault said.

The increased internet traffic from remote office work and schooling only adds to increased traffic generation by entertainment applications as Americans stay at home, with Nielsen projecting a 61% increase in U.S. video streaming usage.

Operators of wireline broadband networks are responding confidently to questions as to whether their infrastructures can handle the increased load.

“We recognize that more of our customers will be working remotely or taking classes online," Verizon said in a statement. “Verizon’s networks are designed and built to meet future demand and are ready should demand increase or usage patterns change significantly.”

Meanwhile, in a letter to leaders of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee and the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Jonathan Spalter, president and CEO of US Telecom, wrote, “Broadband providers are laser focused on making sure the innovative networks they built and manage are ready to accommodate a prolonged reliance on telework, distance learning and other forms of high bandwidth remote communications."

Comcast said during its second quarter earnings call last week that its median residential customer used 34% more data in first three months of the year than in the comparable period of 2018.

Median usage, the cable company said, now exceeds 200 gigabytes per month.

“Our customers’ demand for speed and data usage keeps increasing,” said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.

Related: 1-TB 'Power Users' Nearly Doubled in 2018: Study

As MCN reported in January, research company OpenVault said that median wireline broadband data usage in the U.S. spiked 40% to 145.2 GB in 2018. Average usage was 268.7 GB.

Comcast has said that only a small percentage of its users are approaching, or exceeding, the 1 terabyte usage cap it enforces in 27 states.

According to OpenVault, the number of U.S. users who exceed the monthly 1 TB threshold more than doubled last year to 4.12%. 

The percentage of U.S. wireline broadband users consuming more than 1 terabyte each month of data nearly doubled in 2018 to 4.12%, according to a research published by OpenVault, a company that tracks network usage for operators.

The Hoboken, N.J.-based research company said usage is spiking not just among power users.

Average household usage was 268.7 gigabytes per month in 2018, up 33% year over year. Median usage spiked 40% to 145.2 GB.

“Importantly, the rate of growth for median usage continued to far exceed the growth rate for average usage, indicating that consumption is growing across service providers’ entire subscriber bases, rather than only among heavy users,” OpenVault said in a statement.

Related: Capped Broadband Services Generate 12% Less Usage, Study Finds

For it’s part, OpenVault isn’t without an agenda for advocacy, counting cable broadband companies around the world as its primary customers.

Last week, the firm announced that Vodafone-owned TKS is using multiple OpenVault cloud-based solutions to gain greater insights into broadband usage across its networks and to better manage and forecast bandwidth capacity in Germany and Italy.

OpenVault said the study results justify usage caps.

“Our analysis makes it clear that usage-based billing is among the most effective tools the industry has in managing consumption and reducing the need for massive capital expenditures,” said Josh Barstow, executive VP of corporate strategy and business development for OpenVault.

Democratic ranking members from various committees and subcommittees are probing Pokémon Go developer Niantic on the impact of its wildly popular app on consumers' data usage plans.

One veteran game player suggested it was not a data-heavy application, but it is being played heavily across the country as any trip to the park or strip mall will attest.

The legislators cite reports of users maxing out their monthly data usage plans in a week of playing, and "complained of eating through an entire family plan within a few days."

In a letter dated July 19, Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee Ranking Member Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) framed the issue:

"Pokémon Go has quickly become the biggest mobile game in U.S. history and within a week of its release has surpassed the average daily usage of popular social media platforms including Instagram and Snapchat.  Third-party testing has found that a typical Pokémon Go player uses 10-20 megabytes of data per hour of play and that serious users playing for several hours per day could use up to two gigabytes of data per month, leading to concerns that consumers could quickly consume their monthly cellular data allotment." 

THey asked the company the following questions, and they want answers by Aug. 9.

1. "Are there best practices that Niantic follows to minimize the amount of data consumers use when playing Pokémon Go?

2. "Has Niantic worked with wireless carriers to ensure that consumers are not unexpectedly hit with large overage charges? [The letter quotes T-Mobile CEO John Legere reporting that Pokemon Go users data usage had quadrupled in the past four days. T-Mobile is zeroing out the game from its usage plan for a year].

3. "Does Niantic conspicuously warn consumers before they start using the app about how much data the app consumes?

4. "Does Niantic have any mechanisms in place to make sure consumers are made whole in the event they are hit with an unexpected overage charge resulting from the use of the app?"

Related: IT Industry Group Calls for Workplace Ban On ‘Pokémon Go’