In recent years AT&T and Verizon, the nation’s two largest home Internet providers have eliminated their affordable offerings for slow speed internet, except at the very slowest levels. Each company now charges essentially identical monthly prices – $63-$65 a month after first year discounts have ended – for home wired connections at almost any speed up to 100/100 Mbps fiber service.
This policy of upward “tier flattening” raises the cost of Internet access for urban and rural AT&T and Verizon customers who only have access to the oldest, slowest legacy infrastructure, like DSL or worse.
Affordability is the greatest barrier to increased home broadband. In the United States, broadband is becoming faster for some households and more expensive for others.
Denser communities often get newer tech for connecting faster, and are able to choose from more providers. Thus ISP’s must innovate or lose customers to better competition. This leaves small communities reliant on cellular or satellite connections for the home, which can be expensive, have data limits, and be very slow at times.
Vote with your wallet, and choose a company if at all possible that cares more about service than shareholders. Buy from a smaller, local ISP, or help others by sharing this article.
Siefer, A. (2018, July 31). White Paper – Tier Flattening. Retrieved August 5, 2018, from https://www.digitalinclusion.org/blog/2018/07/31/tier-flattening/