Yep, ISPs Are Charging More for the Same Service

25.09.2023 - 19:14 / pcmag.com

If you're an internet subscriber in the US, there's a good chance you're paying more for broadband than you used to. That's the finding in a new survey from US News & World Report.

The key result indicates that more than half of the respondents say they paid less than $60 for internet when they signed up, while almost that many now pay between $41 to $80 for the same internet service.

On top of that, almost 40% say they've had to cut back on other personal expenses in order to pay their monthly internet bill. Two-thirds blame inflation for that.

Thankfully, most (84%) report download speeds that exceed the FCC's definition of broadband—25 Megabits per second. But a full 8% of respondents still get speeds below that. Maybe the government's Affordable Connectivity Program will help, but that remains to be seen.

That many customers getting slow speeds underscores why the government doesn't want to raise the threshold for defining broadband: It would be (and actually already is) an embarrassment to have so many at such low throughput levels.

The report also underscores a profound lack of options when it comes to broadband service. Over 20% of respondents say they have only one ISP available where they live. The FCC, on the other hand, claims that 94% of people in the US have a choice of three or more providers. That's probably because they're counting the satellite-based ISPs that have almost 100% reach in the US—but two of those (HughesNet, and Viasat) have too much latency to be worthwhile for most uses, and the other (Starlink) has a huge up-front cost.

That's one reason we rated Starlink one of the Best Broadband ISPs of 2023, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good choice if you have a wire-line ISP option. For the best mix of price, speed, reach, and satisfaction, we recommend Verizon Fios or Spectrum, if they're an option near you.

A lot of people in the survey (almost two-thirds) do say they'd pay more for the service that was faster. The key is that it needs to be "reliably" faster. In PCMag's annual Readers' Choice survey on ISPs, the most reliable ISP according to respondents is Nextlight in Longmont, Colorado (also the best for value); Google Fiber and Verizon Fios are also rated high for reliability.

US News & World Report's 360 Review team did the survey in August, using Pollfish, reaching 3,510 adults across every state, with a minimum of 50 adults per state; it weighted the responses to reflect US population stats and has a 2% margin of error.

Read the full report here.

Concerned about your own internet speed? Test it right now. You'll be part of our next Best ISPs story.

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