USTelecom Report Shows Price Drops and Speed Increases for Broadband Services

On October 11, USTelecom released its "2023 Broadband Pricing Index." This latest edition of the BPI report found that prices for fixed wireline broadband services – DSL, cable, and fiber-to-the-home – declined between March 2022 and March 2023. According to the BPI Report, inflation-adjusted prices for providers' most popular broadband speed tier decreased by 18.1% and prices for their fastest speed tier option went down 6.5%. Additionally, between 2015 and 2023, inflation-adjusted prices for the most popular speed tier declined 54.7% and prices for the highest speed tier option dropped by 55.8%. 

Also, the BPI Report found that, between 2015 and 2023, "download speeds offered in the most popular tier increased by 141.5%, while upload speeds increased by nearly 285%" and that "[i]n the fastest-offered tier, download speeds increased by 117.1%, with upload speeds up by nearly 90%."

 

The BPI Report also shows Consumer Price Index (CPI) trends for broadband Internet services compared to other goods and services. Between 2015 and 2023, costs for consumer goods and services rose by 28%, according to CPI-U, but consumer prices for the most popular and the fastest speed options went down by 37% and 39%, respectively. 

 

The report relies on the FCC's Urban Rate Survey of the largest 14 wireline broadband providers that collectively serve 90% of all terrestrial fixed broadband services sold in the U.S. The 2023 BPI Report is available on USTelecom's website. FSF Senior Fellow Andrew Long wrote about the 2022 BPI Report in a June 2022 blog post and about the 2021 BPI Report in a May 2021 blog post. 

 

The findings of the BPI Report are particularly significant now that the FCC has opened its Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet proceeding and proposed to subject broadband Internet access services to public utility regulation. The continuing improvements in network speeds and the consumer-friendly pricing trends on broadband service plans are strong indicators that the broadband marketplace is competitive. Certainly, these market developments do not justify imposing stringent new regulation on broadband services. The Commission should not impose public utility regulation on broadband networks but maintain its market-oriented framework that has helped promote the private investment in competitive wireline broadband networks. For more on this point, see Free State Foundation President Randolph May's September 21, 2023, Perspectives from FSF Scholars, "Reimposing Burdensome Net Neutrality Mandates Will Harm Consumers."