USTelecom – The Broadband Association recently released a report comparing 2015 broadband pricing and speeds to those available today. "2020 Broadband Pricing Index: An Analysis of Decreasing Prices and Increasing Value for Broadband Service Over Time," as its name suggests, finds that "Americans are paying less today for broadband services that are significantly more capable than they were five years ago."
- The price of the most popular broadband service tier is 20.2 percent lower in 2020 than it was in 2015 – and 28.1 percent lower when inflation is taken into account.
- Savings are even greater for the highest-speed tier: 37.7 percent (and 43.9 percent when inflation is considered).
- Speeds, meanwhile, have increased, by 15.7 percent for the most popular offering and 27.7 percent for the highest-speed offering.
All of this is made possible by the $70-80 billion that providers invest annually in broadband infrastructure.
And while these statistics make plain that broadband is far more affordable than in the past, USTelecom at the same time acknowledges that there is more work to be done by government and private stakeholders to remove obstacles to adoption.
As I noted in a previous post, USTelecom is a partner in the "K-12 Bridge to Broadband" initiative, which works with school districts to identify, and connect at discounted rates, the 30 percent of students who lack the connectivity necessary to participate in remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The full report, authored by Arthur Menko, founder, Telcodata and Business Planning, Inc., is available here.
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