Internet access: faster, but not any cheaper

[n00bz0r]

The monthly cost of Internet access has dropped regularly for years, but the big price reductions might now be behind us. New data from Point Topic shows that prices for fiber, cable, and DSL connections have remained essentially flat since September 2007.

The worldwide price paid per megabit has been dropping over the last year when prices are translated directly into US dollars. Some of these drops have been impressive, too: fiber's price per megabit has dropped 20 percent, cable's has fallen 30 percent, and DSL's has declined by 37.5 percent.


But when the total monthly bill for Internet access is graphed in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), there's been no dropoff at all. PPP is a widely used method of assessing differences in buying power between different economies. When PPP is used to measure worldwide Internet access rates, the graph at the left is the result.

So Internet access isn't getting cheaper when measured against people's purchasing power. Point Topic suggests that's because the Internet market is much closer to saturation in many economies, so the easy gains are now gone.

"Since the start of 2008 the watchword seems to have been consolidation. Even before the credit crunch many operators, particularly those offering DSL, were trying to stabilise their business models as their markets moved on to a phase where rapid growth could no longer be counted on to cover holes in their balance sheets," said Fiona Vanier, Senior Analyst at Point Topic.

DSL remains the cheapest technology, but not by much. Cable is slightly more expensive, and fiber is more expensive still, but it's not as bad as you might think. Point Topic's data says that the average monthly charge for fiber at PPP rates is $35—though try getting a fiber connection for $35 in North America and see how well that works.

The data highlights the fact that while Internet access in the US works well, it's not especially cheap or fast by worldwide standards. In Japan, for instance, "various flavours of fiber today account for over 50 percent of the access market, a dominant position achieved in 5 years at the expense primarily of DSL," says Vanier.

ArsTechnica

[nameste]

Thanks for the news..

[Rart]

Well technically if the internets getting faster but the price is remaining stagnant, isn't it technically getting cheaper?

[omgwtf]

I want some fiber at my place...internet in montreal sucks...WE WANT FIBER...So I can say the internet is not going any faster than it was 2 years ago...we're in the same situation...but its much expensive now a days...

[Rart]

Yea tell me about it =/. I would love to have fios here.

[bigg2]

www.pchelp-blg.co.uk

There was a review on there

[lisabritpop]

I want fiber !!!!!!!! but it seems rly expensive in my place!!!!

[Artemis]

Getting the best high speed internet service provider by zip code would be considered by many users as simply a case of checking for the fastest speeds of the different services in their locality and picking one dependent on budget.

Are you practising for a career in politics or something? That was a very long sentence to state the painfully obvious, while adding absolutely nothing original to the conversation. As a backup if the political career goes tits up, you'd go great at writing fortune cookie homilies.....

FIOS is also supposed to be being introduced here in N.Z. but the real problem is the international trunks, there are major plans to upgrade the links to the U.S. which will make all the difference to the amount of data actual data available. That is one thing alot of users outside of the continental U.S. forget, it doesn't matter how fast the local network is, if the network trunks between you and the primarily U.S. networks you are trying to connect to are overloaded it will still be a painful experience.

[mjmacky]

Gladiolus already had all of his posts removed, and I actually thought his account was banned. I guess it's either a robot or it's a lesson not learned, going into a report thread.

[ckrit]

Getting the best high speed internet service provider by zip code would be considered by many users as simply a case of checking for the fastest speeds of the different services in their locality and picking one dependent on budget.

Are you practising for a career in politics or something? That was a very long sentence to state the painfully obvious, while adding absolutely nothing original to the conversation. As a backup if the political career goes tits up, you'd go great at writing fortune cookie homilies.....

He/she/it copied it from somewhere else. Every post made by that account was written by someone else. The problem is that the context is never entirely right. It's basically J-Dye without original content.

Is it a SEO-bot with the links filtered out/replaced with "", at all?