Broadband Economic Benefits: Study Finds Potential $11K Annual Savings

Growing numbers of Americans are relying on Internet, and increasingly mobile broadband, connectivity to earn their livings. Broadband connectivity also offers numerous and varied opportunities for consumers to save money, and the Internet Innovation Alliance highlights the top 10 of them in a new study about broadband economic benefits.

Starting out with the Labor Department’s ¨2015 Consumer Expenditure Survey¨ IIA went online to search for discounts on essentials such as housing, apparel, gasoline and food, as well as more discretionary spending, such as the cost of leisure activities. In its latest report IIA zooms in on online shopping savings for five of the 12 largest U.S. cities by population: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas and Jacksonville. Some of the resulting data required specific, city-level analysis while other was broader based. Online savings opportunities were greatest in the entertainment category. Consumers could save significantly by ¨cutting the cord¨ on a traditional cable TV subscription and relying on an OTT streaming video/TV service, such as Netflix, IIA highlights in an infographic about the broadband economic benefits.