The Three Broadband Gaps

I think there are three distinct broadband gaps that together define the broadband availability gap – the rural broadband gap, the urban affordability gap, and what I call the competition gap. Nobody is talking about what I call the competition gap. Most places in the US have only one ISP that can deliver fast broadband of speeds greater than 100/20 Mbps. Why does this matter? It is becoming clear that the majority of people and businesses nationwide want relatively fast broadband. OpenVault reported that in June 2023, only 11% of broadband users in the country are subscribing to broadband products with speeds under 100 Mbps. Only 27% are subscribing to broadband products with speeds under 200 Mbps. Almost 32% of homes nationwide are now subscribed to gigabit broadband. This represents a huge shift, and as recently as June 2021, 20% of broadband users were buying speeds under 100 Mbps, and 68% of homes were buying speeds under 200 Mbps. In June 2021, less than 11% of homes were buying gigabit broadband. The bottom line is that in most of the country, the only place with real broadband competition is where an ISP with fast technology overbuilt a cable company. There is a lot of fiber construction underway, and the number of neighborhoods with two choices of fast broadband is growing. But it’s still not unusual to find entire counties where nobody has a choice of two fast ISPs. The majority of people in the country still have little or no real competition.