In a repeat of the silliest blog I write every year, this blog covers the annual pronouncement from USTelecom that broadband prices have dropped again in 2025.

USTelecom has a press release about this same time every year that claims that broadband prices are dropping. The claim this year is that the ‘real price’ for the most popular broadband services dropped 8.7% in 2025 and that the price for gigabit service dropped 6.2%. USTelecom claims that  broadband prices have dropped 43% since 2015, while the price for everything else, using the Overall Consumer Price Index, rose 35.8% in the same time period.

Anybody who pays a broadband bill and who still uses the same ISP as the year before knows they have not seen  a price reduction. If a consumer was paying $80 a year ago, according to USTelecom, their bill should have dropped $6.96 per month.

As usual, USTelecom is playing on words, and the key word in their claim is “real prices”. USTelecom is saying that the cost per megabit of broadband has dropped this year. How can the megabit price drop when the actual prices have increased? It’s simple math – ISPs continue to increase the maximum broadband speeds of their products. For example, in the last year, the download speed on the basic broadband product from Charter was increased from 300 Mbps to 500 Mbps. No consumer thinks about their broadband bill as a cost per megabit, but USTelecom is making its claim based on that.

The statement that broadband prices have dropped 43% since 2015 is a doozy. I would argue that the ‘real’ price paid for broadband is the check we all write each month. Consider how pricing has changed for the biggest ISPs since 2015.

Comcast. In 2015, the basic standalone broadband product from Comcast was Comcast Blast! with 100 Mbps for $76.95. That was not a good measure of Comcast’s pricing, because in 2015 Comcast required a customer who wanted to buy this basic broadband product to also buy a basic cable TV package. We can only guess how much of the $76.95 was for broadband versus cable TV. Comcast basic standalone broadband today is $80 for 300/35 Mbps.

Charter. In 2015, Charter sold 60 Mbps broadband for $40. The company was just getting ready that year to merge with Time Warner Cable, which had a higher price of 50 Mbps for $65. Charter’s basic broadband product today is 500/20 Mbps for $80

AT&T.  The company’s pricing for fiber was interesting in 2015. They sold gigabit speeds for $70, with the price set to match Google Fiber. AT&T hadn’t built much residential fiber then, and this product and price were only available in the handful of markets where AT&T overbuilt Google. Once AT&T started to build extensive fiber, the price came down. However, AT&T has now raised prices by $5 for two years in a row, and their prices are now 300 Mbps for $70, 500 Mbps for $80, and gigabit for $95.

Verizon. In 2015 the basic Verizon broadband was 50/20 Mbps for $40. Their prices now start at 100 Mbps for $59.99, 500 Mbps for $79.99, and gigabit for $99.99.

Prices are clearly rising over time. The big ISPs still have price increases every year. I’ve always assumed that USTelecom publishes this silly report for lobbying purposes, so they can claim to be holding down prices.

It’s certainly possible for customers to pay less today than last year. Lower prices have been one of the big drivers for folks to try FWA cellular home broadband, which is priced significantly below the prices of the big ISPS listed above. FWA base monthly prices are $50 to $65, but bundling with a cellular plan can bring the price for broadband as low as $35.