Analyst firm Point Topic has revealed that the amount consumers pay for 1Mbps (1Megabit per second) of broadband bandwidth (speed) is still on a downward trend, albeit decreasing more slowly than before. However the price is quietly rising for consumers who adopt faster next generation broadband services.

According to the data, DSL ( ADSL , SDSL etc. ) prices per megabit have dropped by almost 30% in the 12 months from Q4 2008 to Q4 2009, cable by just over 23% while the bandwidth cost of fibre has increased by 2.1% in the same period.



It's also interesting to see how broadband prices break-up by region. For example, 1Mbps of DSL bandwidth is 6 times more expensive in the Middle East and Africa compared to Asia Pacific, while fibre ( FTTH etc. ) costs twice as much per Megabit in North America as it does in Western Europe.


Markets with a high level of competition (service as opposed to infrastructure competition) naturally offer relatively low broadband prices. The UK is known to be one of the world’s most affordable broadband markets. Indeed new 40Mbps and 50Mbps services from both BT ( FTTC ) and Virgin Media ( Cable Modem ) respectively are already showing that faster speeds don't have to come at a huge premium.