Internet usage has skyrocketed in America over the last decade, with the average home consuming more than 38 times the amount of data in 2010.

In 2020, the average US household is on track to consume 344GB of data every month, compared to just 9GB a month in 2010.

The huge increase in data usage has largely been driven by streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, and Hulu, among others, while online gaming and game downloads have contributed as well.

Internet usage has skyrocketed in America over the last decade, with the average US household on track to consume 344GB of data per month in 2010, a massive increase of the 9GB a month consumed in 2010

'There's no doubt the average consumer is using more bandwidth than ever before,' a report from research company DecisionData,org says.

'With services like Netflix and YouTube offering millions of HD video, or every household having a half-dozen devices constantly using data over home connections, it should surprise no one that the amount of content downloaded or streamed in a given month is rapidly growing.'

According to the report, which was compiled using information from the Federal Communications Commission, the trend could see Americans consuming more than 1TB of data a month by 2023.

That would put a large percentage of the US population in excess of data caps used by most internet service providers in the country, which typically range from 250GB to 1TB depending on the service.

'One terabyte of data seemed like an impossibly large number even in recent memory, but the reality is many consumers will continue to trend toward it faster than they realize,' the report says.

The huge growth has been driven by streaming services like Netflix and YouTube, and if it continues, many Americans could find themselves over standard data cap limits imposed by internet service providers

WHAT ARE DATA CAPS? Data caps are set by network providers to restrict the amount of data transferred by a customer. If users go over the data cap, usually set as monthly limits, customers are charged a fee or in some cases cut off. Caps are set as the total amount of data downloaded per month. At times when more customers are home - such as the current coronavirus pandemic - data caps can be debilitating. Advertisement

Most ISPs charge overage fees for customers that consume more than their monthly allotted data.

For example, AT&T's home internet service charges an additional $10 for every 50GB over the cap on a person's plan, which can range from 150GB to 1TB.

Most major ISPs have suspended their data caps during the COVID-19 pandemic, which industry critics have pointed to as proof that overage fees are exploitive and don't meaningfully protect networks from congestion.

'It's worth remembering that data caps have nothing to do with congestion or capacity constraints,' Ernesto Falcon, a lawyer with the advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Vice.

'They are billing practices and not a technical measure.'

Some believe the arrival of 5G mobile data networks could put even more pressure on ISP providers to raise data caps.

5G service promises to run at speeds surpassing many home connections and make it possible to download huge files in a matter of seconds, including high-definition movies and games.