FCC Boss Kevin Martin Leaves For Think Tank > "ever-declining prices" ????

reply to jt4

Re: "ever-declining prices" ????

Those are somewhat 'bundled' services - I take it.

I agree that in general, a price/kilobit or megabit has dropped. I did pay $39.99 / month for AT&T ADSL for 1.5/384kbps (with POTS service as a requirement) or $45/month for 2-4Mbps cable ($10 more w/o).
Now, its $24.95/month for 3Mbps (POTS requirement) or $40/month (dry) on ADSL, or $45/month for 10Mbps cable - lower bundled prices.

What _IS_ going up is the basic cost. I.e. you will get a ton of service... but you will not find any 'cheap' service.

E.g. I can not find a $25/month 1Mbps dry loop anywhere. Or a $25/month standard cable service anywhere.
Those that do have cheap(er) service are often full of fees/taxes/unfees/charges/adware

Basic costs in services industries in general always go up because of general overhead cost increases. eg...the building they're in costs more, labor costs more, regulatory compliance (taxes, healthcare, workers comp, equipment and vehicle leases, general regulatory compliance fees, etc) go up. And up until very recently energy was up, particularly electricity and gasoline.

While the overall bills in some cases have gone up (mine have stayed the same or gone down), what you get for that has gone up more...in general. 10 years ago I certainly couldn't have gotten my T1 for the $400 I'm paying now. Before that my first office 768/128 DSL line was $49 and now a 1.5Mb biz DSL line is $30. I have been paying Cox about the same $43-$45 for HSI for over 10 years but speeds have gone from 3Mb with @Home to the current 9Mb and increase virtually every year.

In terms of what you would call "cheap" service...I don't think you ever saw a "cheap" service like that. The cheapest service I ever had was 1.5/1.5 best effort WISP for $25 but that was in a day where there was "nothing good on the internet".