Definitions always matter. What is “fast” or “slow” changes over time. How much data a “power user” consumes also changes over time. The cost of supplying a bit likewise changes over time.
That means we move the goalposts over time. Yesterday’s power user is today’s light user.
For most potential U.S. internet access customers back in 1995, dial-up access ran at 56 kbps, tops. In 2002 or so, AOL had more than 26 million customers buying its dial-up service, for example, and speed had increased to perhaps 128 kbps, using better modems. At least, that is what I seem to remember.
Pre-1996, the speed of a fiber-to-home internet access connection was 10 Mbps. When Verizon launched FiOS in 2005 speed was 30 Mbps. Now FiOS offers speeds up to a gigabit per second.
One sees the same progression for digital subscriber line and cable TV hybrid fiber coax networks, or U.S. average speeds.
With static reference points, over time, all users become power users. So we adjust the definitions upward.
The latest OpenVault data shows the power user category grew to about 10 percent of subscribers, the definition of power user being the consumption of more than 1 TB of data per month.
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