An interesting new study out of Harvard took a look at 40 community-owned municipal broadband providers offering fiber to the home broadband, then compared it to comperable offerings from the private sector in these markets. Their findings? The offerings from community broadband ISPs were traditionally less expensive than their private-sector counterparts. Of course that's a major reason why ISPs have literally bought and/or written laws in more than 20 states banning your town or city from exploring such options.
"We were able to make comparisons in 27 communities and found that in 23 cases, the community-owned FTTH providers’ pricing was lower when the service costs and fees were averaged over four years," state the study authors, who add that using a three year-average changed this fraction to 22 out of 27.
"In the other 13 communities, comparisons were not possible, either because the private providers’ website terms of service deterred or prohibited data collection or because no competitor offered service that qualified as broadband," the authors added.
The study also found that pricing among these community-run ISPs tended to be clearer thanks to fewer misleading fees and other pricing caveats. You'll recall that several ISPs (from CenturyLink to Comcast) are facing ongoing lawsuits for jacking up their advertised rates post sale using all manner of misleading fees. The study also noted how promotions were short-lived among most ISPs and inevitably resulted in much higher rates.
"We also found that almost all community-owned FTTH networks offered prices that were clear and unchanging, whereas private ISPs typically charged initial low promotional or “teaser” rates that later sharply rose, usually after 12 months," they noted.
The study also found, unsurprisingly to DSLReports.com readers, that ISPs like Comcast dramatically change their pricing from region to region based entirely upon how much competition they see in any particular market. That impacted everything from promotional rates, to how much you'll save for paperless billing.
"Comcast sometimes defined a monthly price as a range (between $2 and nearly $15 monthly), leaving it unclear what consumers would be paying," the study noted. "Comcast (also) employed different teaser rate progressions, including a price increase after 12 months and two price increases over a period of three years."
The full study can be downloaded
here for those interested.