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How Much Should You Pay for Broadband?

The cost of cable access is on the rise, but the price for basic DSL service is falling, a new survey finds.

Gretel Johnston, IDG News Service

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The cost of residential cable broadband Internet access continued to rise in the second quarter of this year, but only by about 1 percent, according to a new survey by ARS.

Meanwhile, the price of basic ADSL declined slightly in the period. This indicates that after nearly 15 months of price increases, the cost of broadband Internet service to the home has leveled off, ARS says in a press release issued Wednesday.

Cable broadband Internet service prices rose in the second quarter from an average of $44.95 per month in March to an average of $45.31 per month in June, ARS says. In the same period the average monthly price for ADSL decreased less than 1 percent, declining to $51.36 from an average of $51.82.

Making a Choice

The introduction of tiered services will help overall broadband growth, since they provide customers with a choice of pricing packages to which they can migrate, according to Mark Kersey, an ARS analyst cited in the release.

Basic ADSL service is generally a DSL service provider's lowest bandwidth offering and is the most popular type of DSL among residential users, ARS said. Recent launches of entry-level broadband, which generally offer sub-300kbps service for under $40, are not included in either the cable or DSL data.

Cable providers control 62 percent of the broadband market, according to ARS, based in La Jolla, California.

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