Europe Releases Study of Retail Broadband Internet Access Costs in 2012

The EU has released data on retail prices for fixed broadband ISP services, which reveals a pattern of price reduction over the last three years for bundled offers. It also finds that price competition is mainly taking place in the market for download speeds of above 4Mbps (Megabits per second).

The study itself only focuses on the biggest broadband ISPs, uses VAT inclusive prices, excludes special discounts that don’t apply consistently over the contract duration and chooses to define “Broadband Internet Access” as a service that assures always-on connectivity to internet download speeds in excess of just 144kbps (0.14Mbps).

Unfortunately the 444 page long report, which is data heavy and difficult to read, isn’t neat enough to be used in a simple comparison between the UK and other countries, although we did manage to extract something close to that below. It also reveals that standalone broadband products still represent 42% of all market offers, followed by dual-play bundles (internet + TV or phone) on 27% and triple-play bundles with 20%.

Broadband Internet Access Cost 2012 (BIAC)
http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/broadband-internet-access-cost-2012-biac