Ookla: "Broadband" Availability Expanding Rapidly

According to an Ookla report (registration required) released on October 27, the availability of high-speed Internet access that satisfies the FCC's definition of "broadband" grew dramatically during the first half of this year.

Ookla, which operates the Speedtest® website, reported that the number of states in which most of its users enjoy speeds that meet or exceed the minimum benchmarks established by the FCC – 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream – nearly doubled between January and June of 2025. It also found that parity between urban and rural areas increased substantially during that time.

Specifically, Ookla's testing data revealed that the number of states in which at least 60 percent of users have access to "broadband" jumped from 23 (including the District of Columbia) as of year-end 2024 to 39 by the end of June 2025. In five of those states – Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Rhode Island –over 70 percent of its users receive "broadband."

In only three largely rural states do less than half of Speedtest® users report "broadband" service: Wyoming (48.26 percent), Montana (41.09 percent), and Alaska (38.42 percent).

In addition, the gap between the speeds provided to urban and rural users narrowed in 33 states during the first six months of this year – nearly double the number of states (17) in which that disparity increased. 

USTelecom Report: Broadband Value Proposition Steadily Improves

Released on Monday, the 2024 edition of USTelecom's annual report on the competitive broadband marketplace tells a familiar tale of falling prices and rising speeds.

Authored by Business Planning, Inc.'s Arthur Menko, "2024 Broadband Pricing Index: Broadband Prices Continue to Decline As Consumers Choose Faster Speeds" (2024 BPI) reveals that, accounting for inflation, the price of the most popular broadband speed tiers ("BPI-Speed") decreased by 9.4 percent between 2023 and 2024 while the price of faster tiers – that is, those at or near gigabit download speeds ("PBI-Gigabit") – fell by 3.9 percent.

Compared to 2015, BPI-Speed inflation-adjusted prices are 59.9 percent lower. BPI-Gigabit inflation-adjusted prices, meanwhile, have decreased 43 percent since 2017. Of course, context is key – and a look at broader economic trends only underscores the increasing affordability of broadband:

• In real dollars, the per-Mbps price of BPI-Speed offerings has fallen by 81.2 percent since 2015 – and as the overall cost of consumer goods and services grew by 32.2 percent, the nominal price of BPI-Speed offerings fell by 41 percent.
• In real dollars, the per-Mbps price of BPI-Gigabit offerings has fallen by 43 percent since 2017 – and as the overall cost of consumer goods and services grew by 27.5 percent, the nominal price of BPI-Gigabit offerings fell by 21.4 percent.

While prices are shrinking, speeds are accelerating. In terms of downloads, BPI-Speed offerings are more than twice as fast as in 2015: 301 Mbps versus 141 Mbps. Upload speeds similarly have increased, from 51 Mbps to 96 Mbps.

Free State Foundation scholars have summarized every BPI report released by USTelecom. Posts to the FSF Blog addressing previous versions are available here: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020.

Report Compares Broadband Performance in Rural Areas

On June 11, Recon Analytics published an interesting report titled, "The Happiest and Unhappiest Broadband Customers in the United States." Recon received responses from broadband customers from rural counties across America regarding their satisfaction with broadband service performance. The report includes a list of the ten happiest broadband counties as well as the ten unhappiest broadband counties. In the report, author Dr. Roger Entner makes the commonsense observation that broadband provider performance matters more than technology platform, and that the performance level of individual providers can vary substantially in different geographic markets. For more, check out Recon Analytics' report.

Market competition certainly is important for encouraging performance quality by broadband Internet service providers in rural as well as urban areas. Broadband service providers that fail to deliver speeds at advertised benchmarks, that experience network outages and do not provide subscribers with sufficient connectivity, or that otherwise fail to provide value for the dollar deserve to lose subscribers to market rivals who can offer better performance. It's no secret that rural areas have lower population levels and density as well as geographic challenges to providing service. Consequently, rural areas have less competitors than urban areas. Near-term increases in availability and awareness of fixed wireless access (FWA) services may provide an additional spur to incumbent rural broadband providers to boost performance levels in areas where they are perceived to be lagging.