Broadband Prices Dropping, Just Not For You Global prices 37.5% lower this year, just not in United States... The good news? According to the latest data from Point Topic, global broadband prices are 37.5% lower than last year as the cost to provide broadband service declines. The cost of fiber and cable connections have dropped by 20% and 30% respectively, with global citizens paying, on average, $1.25 per megabit per second for fiber and $5.65 for cable. The bad news? While France, Germany, the UK and Asia are seeing these drops, prices in the United States remain flat, something Point Topic blames on monopoly and duopoly markets (in other words, not enough competition).
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 | | £10 for 10mbit I'm paying £10 a month for 10mbit down 768k up, completely unlimited with no traffic shaping, and ive yet to see any congestion. It should be 16mb but too far from the CO. the bad news, i'm going to be stuck on these speeds for ages whilst the incumbent milks ancient copper wires and not lucky enough to live in the 50% of the population that can get 50mbit cable  Sky/o2 are the only decent large dsl isp's in the UK. The rest traffic shape heavily, have download limits and are congested. cheaper prices normally means crappier service, no room for future investment which is starting to become a issue in the uk now.
Kudos to Verizon in the states for laying fiber! | |
|  | | | Re: £10 for 10mbit You have nothing to complain about. I pay $60 per month for 1536/672 kpbs, with no hope of faster speeds available; this in a town of 30,000. | |
| | | Core0000Premium
join:2008-05-04
Somerset, KY Reviews:
 ·Time Warner Cable
| Re: £10 for 10mbit Wow that does suck.. Here I thought I had it bad because I pay 45.00 (+or-) a month for 2.5/384kbps lowest speed tier from windstream.
side note...Well since I am supposed to get 3 megs down, it does suck paying for something I am not getting. IT also sucks that I live in the city and cannot upgrade my speed even though I want to -_-' | |
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approval from:
Linklist 
| Statistics are fun If U.S users paid the AVERAGE prices listed....
Comcast's 16mbps tier would be $90 a month, their 50 mbps tier would be $278 a month.
TWC's 15 mbps tier would be $84 a month. TWC's
Verizon's 20 mbps tier would be $25 a month, their 50 mpbs tier would be $62.
So looking at worldwide averages, clearly American cable companies are undercharging for their higher tiers while Verizon's overcharging for their tiers. | |
| |  funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:6
1 edit | Re: Statistics are fun said by RR User :
If U.S users paid the AVERAGE prices listed....
Comcast's 16mbps tier would be $90 a month, their 50 mbps tier would be $278 a month. Not quite. With a 250 GB monthly limit, Comcast's service has a capacity of about 750 Kbps.
said by RR User :
TWC's 15 mbps tier would be $84 a month. TWC users are getting warning calls for 40 GB/wk usages. That makes them even cheaper quality (more expensive) than Comcast.
So looking at worldwide averages, clearly American cable companies are undercharging for their higher tiers while Verizon's overcharging for their tiers.
No, they're all overcharging. The last paragraph of the article linked above says, "However, prices in the U.S. have been relatively flat, which Johnson blames on local markets that are still monopolies or duopolies."
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL
edit 1: cheaper quality (more expensive) | |
| | |  baineschile2600 ways to livePremium
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI
·Comcast
| Re: Statistics are fun said by funchords:said by RR User :
If U.S users paid the AVERAGE prices listed....
Comcast's 16mbps tier would be $90 a month, their 50 mbps tier would be $278 a month. Not quite. With a 250 GB monthly limit, Comcast's service has a capacity of about 750 Kbps. Assuming you run your connection 24/7, yes. If one is doing that though, maybe one should upgrade to business class, where caps are not an issue. | |
| | | | | | Re: Statistics are fun Irrelevant. Persons who live in residential areas, although they may choose a business class account, will to still be subject to the 250GB cap, as well as traffic shaping. Considering this makes up roughly 35% of America, the point is irrelevant. | |
| | | | | | | Re: Statistics are fun said by PapaMidnight:Irrelevant. Persons who live in residential areas, although they may choose a business class account, will to still be subject to the 250GB cap, as well as traffic shaping. Considering this makes up roughly 35% of America, the point is irrelevant. Irrelevant is the cap itself since 99% of users won't ever hit it.
It's the equivalent of putting a speed limiter on a car set to 120 mph. How many are actually going to hit it? | |
| | | | | | | | Re: Statistics are fun Caps don't manage congestion during peak hours. The "heavy users" aren't affecting anyone if they're downloading during non-peak hours. And even the light users are slowing everyone down by checking their mail or listening to music during peak hours.
Caps are nonsensical and anti-competitive and there is absolutely no evidence that indicates they do anything to help manage network traffic. | |
| | | | | | | | | Re: Statistics are fun said by sonicmerlin:Caps don't manage congestion during peak hours. The "heavy users" aren't affecting anyone if they're downloading during non-peak hours. And even the light users are slowing everyone down by checking their mail or listening to music during peak hours. Caps are nonsensical and anti-competitive and there is absolutely no evidence that indicates they do anything to help manage network traffic. Caps are just to give a limit for abusers. The Congestion Management is to manage congestion during peak hours. | |
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| | | | | | | Well...
Now that you ask... | |
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| |  jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL | said by funchords:No, they're all overcharging. The last paragraph of the article linked above says, "However, prices in the U.S. have been relatively flat, which Johnson blames on local markets that are still monopolies or duopolies." Static prices while speeds increase = NOT FLAT PRICES (the entire story is about dollars per Mbps).
If they were overcharging they'd be hemorraging customers, and they aren't. More accurate would be to say "They're charging more than Robb thinks is fair."  | |
| | | | funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:6 | Re: Statistics are fun said by jester121:If they were overcharging they'd be hemorraging customers, and they aren't. More accurate would be to say "They're charging more than Robb thinks is fair." Well that line is also true. 
I did the calc once showing that, for $40/mo, we all ought to be running 30 Mbps connections (and that was more than a year ago). This is given the typical costs and capabilities of delivery in telecom equipment. The gatekeeper, in most areas, has been the last-mile ISPs.
I hardly blame them for not wanting to get into a continuous upgrade cycle. But we don't have anything near the competition that would otherwise create fair market prices. I think the article above reflects that. We're stuck in a duopoly where our leverage is low.
When both players have kept prices high and speeds low despite reductions in their own costs or improvements in their own equipment, then consumers have no place to go but to their wallets.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL | |
| | | | | jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
1 edit | Re: Statistics are fun I know you've worked in the biz, so your calc probably has more validity than a PIOYASWAG* but it's still based on your assumptions, industry-wide averages, and who knows what else. While DC and Chicago might have similar costs, the thousands of small towns spread across the country are drastically different, and aren't served by wide-sweeping generalizations.
Furthermore, your calculations probably didn't take into account the elasticity of broadband pricing. Clearly the duopolies have identified the roughly $40-50 per month price point as the comfort zone for most customers in most places, and they're not willing to budge too much.
I, for one, think it's fair so I pay the price, and in fact I think it's a great deal given what I do with my Comcast connection at home, and the enjoyment and utility I get from it each month. Other people think caps are too low or prices are too high or there's too much latency or newsgroups should be included or whatever else, and they're welcome to their opinion, but that doesn't make the ISP evil or greedy (in a bad way) or draconian.
* - pull it outa your ass scientific wild-ass guess | |
| | | | |  espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2
 ·Vitelity VOIP
| said by funchords:I did the calc once showing that, for $40/mo, we all ought to be running 30 Mbps connections (and that was more than a year ago). This is given the typical costs and capabilities of delivery in telecom equipment. The gatekeeper, in most areas, has been the last-mile ISPs. I'd love to see the math on that. Even with a much cheaper delivery solution like Ethernet you're still looking at $7/mbps carrier costs from the rock-bottom players like Telia and Cogent, and that's in a carrier neutral facility where they can put in a box like a Force10 E600 and provide 336 fiber hand-offs within the facility all on one single piece of hardware.
said by funchords:I hardly blame them for not wanting to get into a continuous upgrade cycle. But we don't have anything near the competition that would otherwise create fair market prices. Comparing privately funded and built networks in the US to those funded or heavily sponsored by government funding isn't a good way to arrive at fair market value. That's like comparing the pricing of a T-shirt at Target to the price of a T-Shirt at Good Will; the factors that lead to the pricing are so vastly different that you need to at least be conscious of the differences.
said by funchords:When both players have kept prices high and speeds low despite reductions in their own costs or improvements in their own equipment, then consumers have no place to go but to their wallets. Reductions in equipment costs doesn't help you when you're still paying off your current equipment. That only helps you on your next equipment refresh interval, which for infrastructure is a 3-6 year cycle if you're running things short, and as long as 10-15 years on a conservative cycle. | |
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1 edit | Re: Statistics are fun In fact, the amount of money cable providers have spent on their equipment, BOTH OLD AND NEW, has decreased every quarter. So you're either misinformed or a bald-faced liar. Let me bequeath some more meaningful information.
Comcast, for instance, has an operating cash flow margin of 39 percent in the first quarter of 2009, up from 37.8 percent a year earlier and 37.4 percent in the first quarter of 2007—and it has been rolling out the (relatively cheap) DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades for some time already.
Time Warner Cable. Time Warner Cable, which kicked off the most recent debate over metered billing and Internet data caps, likewise posted some excellent first quarter numbers. The company's overall revenues were up five percent from a year before, but when broken down by category, Internet access did much better—11 percent higher. In its 2008 annual report, TWC also indicates that its Internet expenses had dropped by about 12 percent, even as the revenues increased.
Back when it was still issuing statements trying to justify its unpopular data caps, the company stressed that the business was a good one now, but that it needed plenty of future cash to pay for all the upgrades that higher Internet use was forcing on the company. But in the first quarter of 2009, the company substantially cut its capital expenditures, from $846 million a year ago to $769 million for this last three months. | |
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| | | | | said by jester121:said by funchords:No, they're all overcharging. The last paragraph of the article linked above says, "However, prices in the U.S. have been relatively flat, which Johnson blames on local markets that are still monopolies or duopolies." Static prices while speeds increase = NOT FLAT PRICES (the entire story is about dollars per Mbps). If they were overcharging they'd be hemorraging customers, and they aren't. More accurate would be to say "They're charging more than Robb thinks is fair." I disagree, I believe the reason they are not hemorrhaging customers is simple, and for two reasons: 1) There's no other place for said customers to go, and 2) Said customers don't even know how much they're being taken for. | |
| | | | | jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL | Re: Statistics are fun said by PapaMidnight:I disagree, I believe the reason they are not hemorrhaging customers is simple, and for two reasons: 1) There's no other place for said customers to go, and 2) Said customers don't even know how much they're being taken for. 1. Sure there is. All customers have a choice to no longer be customers.
2. Sure they do. It's on their monthly bill.
(Oh, did you mean "taken for" as in, "taken advantage of" or "hoodwinked"? Well that's a pretty subjective view isn't it?) | |
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1 edit | Re: Statistics are fun In the UK 71% of people surveyed felt that broadband was as essential a need as food and water. In many cases people's livelihoods depend on their access to the internet. And even when it doesn't, the internet connects people to the rest of the world. Cutting a person off is akin to cutting off phone service. So no, they don't have the "option" to quit.
This is evidenced by the fact that EVEN DURING A RECESSION more and more people are signing up for broadband, even though they're constantly being gouged. | |
| | | | | | | | | Re: Statistics are fun said by sonicmerlin:In the UK 71% of people surveyed... Who was surveyed and how was it conducted?
For all we know it could've been an online survey done on the UK equivalent of DSLR. | |
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| | | cwh
join:2006-05-14
San Antonio, TX | Prices have decreased and speeds have increased.
I paid about $80/month for IDSL 10 years ago. I pay $25 for 3meg dsl now. That is a significant price difference. | |
| | | | | | | Re: Statistics are fun The flat rate referred to by the article is something that HAS HAPPENED IN THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS. Your cherry picking of "the last 10 years" is so asinine it gives me a headache. No one in the technology industry, in ANY AREA, defines progress over a ten year period.
In my case I've had the same TWC service since 2003. My speed hasn't changed in 6 years. The previous incumbent, Cablevision, has repeatedly upgraded its customers' speeds in the areas that it now serves. Obviously there's something wrong with TWC. | |
| | | | | | cwh
join:2006-05-14
San Antonio, TX | Re: Statistics are fun Well i have not had TW in 3 years. But in the 5 years I had them, I went to 1.5 to 6 without a price increase. This has been a typical consumer experience. | |
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| | | Reviews:
 ·Boost Mobile
 ·Verizon FiOS
·Optimum Online
| said by jester121:Static prices while speeds increase = NOT FLAT PRICES (the entire story is about dollars per Mbps). If they were overcharging they'd be hemorraging customers, and they aren't. More accurate would be to say "They're charging more than Robb thinks is fair." If there was legitimate competition the prices would be fair and they would hemorrhage customers. | |
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| | | | said by funchords:Not quite. With a 250 GB monthly limit, Comcast's service has a capacity of about 750 Kbps. Now you're mixing data RATE and CAPACITY. The article was about RATE, not CAPACITY. My comment was about RATE, not CAPACITY.
said by funchords:TWC users are getting warning calls for 40 GB/wk usages. That makes them even cheaper quality (more expensive) than Comcast. These "warning calls" and caps DO NOT physically affects data RATE, so it doesn't make any difference in this situation which is not about CAPACITY.
said by funchords:No, they're all overcharging. The last paragraph of the article linked above says, "However, prices in the U.S. have been relatively flat, which Johnson blames on local markets that are still monopolies or duopolies." Prices are flat but data RATES are going up, so cost per bit is dropping same as the rest of the world. Below worldwide average costs for the higher cable data RATES, in fact. | |
| | | | funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:6 | Re: Statistics are fun said by RR User :said by funchords:Not quite. With a 250 GB monthly limit, Comcast's service has a capacity of about 750 Kbps. Now you're mixing data RATE and CAPACITY. The article was about RATE, not CAPACITY. My comment was about RATE, not CAPACITY. 1 Mbps is both a rate and a capacity.
250 GB/mo is also both a rate and a capacity. Sure, it may be managed manually rather than by physical technical limits, but it's a rate and capacity none-the-less.
(That said, the article and the report are silent as to whether any of the services considers are capped -- and they probably are. The point is probably yours, but it also means that the report itself is less meaningful.)
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL | |
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| | | | said by funchords:Not quite. With a 250 GB monthly limit, Comcast's service has a capacity of about 750 Kbps. BTW, Comcast's data CAPACITY for residential users is 250 GB, not 750 Kbps. In my example, it's data RATE is 16 mbps.
IF you divide the capacity by the data rate, like you and others do to calculate "capacity", you get "the data rate needed to reach capacity in a month". What you call "capacity" is a meaningless number to end users. Do you also calculate the "capacity" of your car by dividing your monthly mileage by the speed limit?
2000 miles/60mph = 33 mph
...but wait, if you drive further you get a higher "capacity"...
4000 miles/60mph=66mph
Doesn't make much sense does it?
If I only download 120 GB in a month at 15 mbps, is my capacity 375kbps? Obviously not... | |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Russia Not in russia, have fun with your 128Kbitps dsl for $80 a month, it beats the worst rural US phone companies. I bet they put a filter on your line for dialup to not work above 9.6kbitps also.
»englishrussia.com/?p=684 | |
| |  SLDPremium
join:2002-04-17
San Francisco, CA | Re: Russia Hello!?! Stay out of Russia! | |
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 LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 | Flat prices can be explained by devalued dollar There is a real easy explanation for flat prices in the US. The value of the dollar has dropped approx 11% over the last 3 months compared to a basket of other currencies. By holding prices flat, it means that US broadband providers have actually absorbed a 11% price cut due to the lower value of the dollar, when compared to foreign figures.
»money.cnn.com/2009/06/04/markets···ndex.htm
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page | |
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See 16 replies to this post | |
funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:6 | $1.25 per Mbps for fiber, $5.65 per Mbps for cable? For a given data rate, the cost of fiber and cable connections has also dropped by 20 percent and 30 percent, respectively. Currently, the cost is about $1.25 per megabit per second for fiber and $5.65 for cable.
Shouldn't the cost for cable, inferior to fiber for data, be lower? Can anyone explain this one?
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL | |
| | | | Re: $1.25 per Mbps for fiber, $5.65 per Mbps for cable? said by funchords:For a given data rate, the cost of fiber and cable connections has also dropped by 20 percent and 30 percent, respectively. Currently, the cost is about $1.25 per megabit per second for fiber and $5.65 for cable.Shouldn't the cost for cable, inferior to fiber for data, be lower? Can anyone explain this one? In theory, because you have less bandwidth available to cable users, but roughly the same demand, the price is greater due to scarcity.
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"This is a bus. You know how big a bus is?" | |
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cicerone
join:2007-09-05
San Francisco, CA
4 edits | US Prices are criminal I am paying $70/mo for 20/5 mbps (Comcast Cable Internet). With basic cable that drops $10. (What a deal, right?). They recently started offering 50mbps down at $140/mo (with cable).
The $20 ATT DSL option is only 768k. Incredible. "Elite" is $35/mo and only 6mbps! What a joke.
These are the only two providers to my particular neighborhood (in San Francisco). And I want the higher speeds so I'm stuck until FIOS comes around.
And most U.S. customers can only dream of these speeds, and often only have 1 provider. It's all relative. | |
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See 11 replies to this post | |
funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:6 | The Point-Topic.com Link is here »point-topic.com/content/dslanaly···q109.htm
This goes into some of the externals we're talking about in our comment section, where the PC World article did not. I'm still digesting some of its oddness, but here it is for your own confusion...
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL | |
| | | here too and not just in canada either... they are going up here. | |
|  perki
join:2008-12-01
Santa Maria, CA | Prices Going Down? Yet My Bill Went Up 2 Bucks | |
| | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
 ·Verizon Online DSL
·RoadRunner Cable
·Comcast
| Re: Prices Going Down? As did mine.
Though in some areas cable appears to actually be cheaper in the US than abroad. $90 for 50 Mbps (Lafayette), $116 for 50 Mbps (Comcast DOCSIS 3), $50 for 15 Mbps (TWC in the Austin/San Antonio area). So cable pricing isn't bad int eh US as long asthe internet availability is good enough and caps aren't high enough to discourage yu from using the internet.
On the fiber side of things, yes it's more expensive than the subsidized stuff in Europe, unless we're talking about Lafayette. In which case it's about the same. Anyhow, I'll take my 20 Mbps symmetric FiOS for $60 per month ($3 per Mbit, they say) because it has 20 Mbps of upstream speed. So you could say it's 40 Mbps up + down, or $1.50 per Mbit. Yay! | |
| | | | What difference does it make if the ISP increases bandwidth but creates data caps? If they only want customers who do not use the lines to their capacity, what's the difference between a 6MBS and a 50MBS connection? Most sites cannot fully utilize a 6MBS connections. I'd expect that for browsing that not even 1.5MBS is normally achieved.
For average users -- all of the increases in bandwidth mean nothing but higher prices. For those who could use the higher bandwidth -- the caps eliminate the usefulness. The bandwidth touted by the ISP's seems more for marketing purposes -- especially the burst bandwidth stuff like powerboost. It makes it appear like the ISP is giving us something to justify price increases until you actually try and use it. Caps, filtering, metered billing, etc -- I'd rather have lower max bandwidth and lower pricing without any of this other nonsense. | |
| | | | | Re: Prices Going Down? said by mlcarson:What difference does it make if the ISP increases bandwidth but creates data caps? What difference do the caps make if 99% of users never hit them even with increased bandwidth? | |
| | | | wentlancYou Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH | Re: Prices Going Down? What difference does the speed make when 99% of users never use in excess of 20Mbps?
What is your peak data rate?
What is the average PEAK data rate for cable users?
cw | |
| | | | | | Why have caps if they do nothing to manage network congestion during peak hours?
Also, a very small minority of users subscribe to the higher pricing tiers. Most pay for the lowest tier. Those "abusers of the tubes" already pay a premium for their higher data rates, meaning they're being gouged on the caps. | |
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 sbrookPremium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa
kudos:4 | Don't feel alone ... Canada's prices have gone way up! Canada's moved near the bottom of the OECD's analysis on a $/Mbps rating from middle of the pack ... ISPs here have been pushing prices up significantly. | |
| | | The American Plutocracy Just what did you extpect from this aolmost perfect pluotcracy that is the United States. Anyone who thinks this might be changed is a fool. | |
| |  XBL2009------
join:2001-01-03
Chicago, IL | Re: The American Plutocracy Maybe it's time for a new form of government. | |
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| XBL2009------
join:2001-01-03
Chicago, IL |  America is the suck now
South Korea, Japan, Australia, Europe are all moving to next generation broadband and America can't even deploy old generation broadband. | |
| | | | Re: America is the suck now said by XBL2009:Instead of following the rest of the world we should be leading the world in every category. South Korea, Japan, Australia, Europe are all moving to next generation broadband and America can't even deploy old generation broadband. This! | |
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| | Apples and oranges: all "megabits" are not equal The fact that your home connection is rated at "10 megabits per second" by a carrier does not mean that you can stream 10 megabits of data, continuously, 24x7. More likely, it means that the maximum raw data rate at which the modem can "train up" is 10 Mbps. This is a bit like a used car salesman telling you that a car is a "120 MPH car" because that's the largest number on the speedometer.
The fact is that backbone bandwidth still costs quite a lot all over. In the US, the best wholesale price that one can get for non-oversold backbone bandwidth is about $15 per Mbps. (Yes, Cogent advertises $3 per Mbps, but it oversells.) And that is only at major urban hubs and does not include "middle mile" transport to your ISP's hub or last mile transport to your home or office.
It is true that US bandwidth prices are inflated by the excessive cost of "middle mile" transport, and this is something that must be fixed by Congress. (Congress needs to mandate the opening of fiber routes to the areas through which they pass, and also to eliminate price gouging on "special access" -- AKA wholesale -- connections.) But nowhere in the world is the cost of actual, committed backbone bandwidth to the consumer under $15 per Mbps unless there is a government subsidy. | |
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) connection for $30/month soon 
America is dying from greed what more is there to say but o well i still love the usa got to get rid of the shit running it in to the ground