Average Global Residential Fibre Optic Broadband Tariffs Getting Cheaper

Telecoms analyst Point Topic has today revealed that the average cost of standalone broadband packages (tariffs) offered to consumers has continued to fall for superfast fibre optic and cable based broadband ISP packages, yet the price of slower DSL (e.g. ADSL2+) services has stayed fairly flat.

It’s interesting to note from the graph below that the average monthly charge for fibre based services is now more or less the same as for DSL, which is despite the fact that fibre optic internet connections can deliver significantly faster speeds.

Point Topic’s global database of operators found that the average world download bandwidth for DSL stood at 6.8Mbps (Megabits per second), while cable (e.g. Virgin Media) scored 34.2Mbps and fibre 67.8Mbps. This is believed to be based off average headline / advertised figures rather than slower real-world performance.

It should be noted that PPP in this context stands for Purchasing Power Parity and allows Point Topic to make direct comparisons of tariffs across the world by adjusting the local currency and exchange rate to make the buying power of $1 (PPP) in country A equal to $1 (PPP) in country B.

So why the low fibre prices? As ever there are many reasons but one of the biggest is the simple fact that fibre is effectively forced to compete with existing DSL packages, which are often cheaper but slower. At least they use to be. Indeed many fibre ISPs have apparently introduced lower speed packages, which can also attract lower prices.

Point Topic also debatably claims that Fibre doesn’t yet have a “killer application” and as a result the firm “just hasn’t seen the residential appetite for the fastest speeds fibre can offer“, although online video and increasingly rich internet content in general will surely continue to improve in quality and thus demand ever higher speeds.