Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Report: U.S. is 32nd Worldwide on Broadband Affordability

Congratulations! The US Is 32nd Worldwide On Broadband Affordability

from the nice-job-everybody dept

Wed, Jul 12th 2023 05:23am - Karl Bode

"I’ve spent the better part of two decades writing about how telecom monopolization (and the corruption that protects it) results in expensive, spotty, sluggish, broadband and historically terrible customer service.

The cause of our substandard broadband isn’t much of a mystery, but because of these companies’ political influence, state and federal policymakers often lack the courage to do much about it.

So the problem persists. One recent study found that the U.S. was currently ranked somewhere around 32nd globally, behind countries like Russia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria (you can find the full breakdown here):

“The United States and Canada both have one of the highest internet costs,” Alex Tofts, the Broadband Expert for Broadband Genie, said in a summary.

“It’s driven by a lack of competition and bigger distances to connect, with lower population density than other developed countries. However, both have average wages in the top fifteen in the world, compensating for the high cost of internet.”

For decades, people (mostly the industry) tried to suggest the problem was because America was just so gosh darn big. But you’ll notice that China and Russia, (ranked 25th and 17th, respectively) still perform better. Data routinely shows that affordability is the key obstacle to access, yet it’s only been in the last few years that you’ve started to see this reality reflected in U.S. policymaking.

Usually after a study like this appears, telecom monopoly lobbyists and think tankers will subsequently try to claim that U.S. broadband is actually super affordable if you stand on your head, squint, and only look at the metrics in some bizarrely specific way, like only looking at relative value in cost-per-Megabits per second in some markets at certain times of day. I wish I was kidding.

But again, the cause of this problem is very clear: monopolization and consolidation, protected by corruption..."

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How much broadband internet costs around the world - Business Review

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Congratulations! The US Is 32nd Worldwide On Broadband Affordability | Techdirt

Report: U.S. is 32nd Worldwide on Broadband Affordability

Posted on July 7, 2023 4:11pm by Carl Weinschenk

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Home » Report: U.S. is 32nd Worldwide on Broadband Affordability

The United States ranks thirty-second in the world on internet affordability, according to new research from Broadband Genie, a provider of data about broadband services.

Broadband affordability is defined by the percentage of a country’s average salary that would need to be spent to cover the average cost of internet connectivity.

Broadband Genie estimates that the average monthly U.S. broadband bill is $72.20 and the average monthly salary is $4,083.26.
That means U.S. residents spend just under 1.8% of their monthly salaries on broadband.

> Worldwide, subscribers spend 3.8% of their monthly salary on broadband.
> In North America overall, high speed Internet consumes 3.04% of users’ salaries. > Canada is 41st on Broadband Genie’s internet affordability rankings.

> Regionally, Europe had the most affordable broadband. The Americas were third. Africa had the least affordable broadband.

“The United States and Canada both have one of the highest internet costs,” Alex Tofts, the Broadband Expert for Broadband Genie, said in a summary.

“It’s driven by a lack of competition and bigger distances to connect, with lower population density than other developed countries.
However, both have average wages in the top fifteen in the world, compensating for the high cost of internet.”

> The five countries with the most affordable broadband were Hong Kong, Singapore, Denmark, and Finland. In all of those countries, broadband costs less than 1% of the average salary.
> The countries with the least affordable internet are Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea, Papua New Guinea. Broadband costs more than 80% of the average monthly salary in all three countries.

A study conducted by NTIA last year found that three in four U.S. households that do not have home internet would use it only if the service were free."

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