A rebound from COVID-19 broadband speed slowdowns characterized BroadbandNow’s second quarter assessment of broadband trends. Researchers also found wide variations from state to state on broadband pricing.
Two of the top findings from the report directly or indirectly deal with the pandemic. “The State of Broadband in America, Q2 2020” found that speeds redoubled during the quarter compared to the earliest weeks of the pandemic, with only four – North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming – recording their lowest monthly internet speeds.”
Many children, the report says, live in areas without access to home broadband internet. These kids are at risk if school disruptions occur.
BroadbandNow found that access to low priced plans – defined as those priced at $60 or less per month – increased by only 1% compared to the first quarter.
The report, which is based on publicly available plan data from more than 2,000 ISPs, said that access to wired broadband at five price increments all rose. The percentage of the population with access at $40 or less constituted 20% of the market; $50 or less was measured at 25%; $60 or less at 51%, $70 or less at 73% and $80 or less at 88%. The biggest increase was at $50 or less and the least was $80 or less.
Results varied considerably by state: Zero percent of residents of Alaska had access to wired broadband at $60 or less per month, while 75% of the population of the District of Columbia had broadband at this price available to them.
The report about broadband pricing and COVID-19 broadband slowdowns also contains a proposal. Currently, the FCC defines broadband as 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. BroadbandNow advocates for increasing the definition to at least 100 Mbps/25 Mbps.
“Raising the bar to account for changes in online behavior has precedent,” the report reads. “The current standard was introduced by the FCC in 2015 as an increase to the previous standard of 4 Mbps download, 1 Mbps upload. In the five years since, technological advancements have made things like large file uploads and downloads, ultra HD streaming, and robust online learning environments possible, but only on connections capable of supporting them.”
The gap between the current speed and BroadbandNow’s proposed speed is smallest in the District of Columbia and the greatest in Wyoming.
BroadbandNow’s finding that broadband speeds slowed early in the pandemic and subsequently rebounded mirrored the organization’s earlier findings about COVID-19 broadband slowdowns. In early April, BroadbandNow said that rural download speeds had averaged 19.9 Mbps in January and dropped to an average of 15.5 Mbps in late March. Subsequently, however, download speeds had rebounded.