Higher Prices for Rural Broadband

Innovative Systems of Mitchell (SD) commissioned a survey of broadband and bundled rates paid by rural residents. This is the eighth year of the survey. The 2022 survey focused on zip codes that are completely rural in order to find out about rural rates. The results come from surveys administered to 841 rural residents. The study showed that the average rate paid for rural broadband increased from $68 per month in 2021 to $71 in 2022. The average bill for customers that bundle broadband with video increased from $114 in 2021 to $121 in 2022. I was not surprised to see rural rates climbing because rates seem to be moving upward everywhere. For example, in urban markets, all of the major cable companies have had rate increases. A lot of other ISPs have followed suit in an attempt to keep ahead of inflation. But nationwide averages don’t likely tell the story everywhere in rural markets. It has been my experience, having worked in dozens of counties in the last few years, that rural rates generally have a lot more geographic variance than urban rates. In any given rural county, there generally is only a tiny handful of ISPs with significant market penetration, and the rates of those specific ISPs might be significantly different than even in a neighboring county.