Surprise! The FCC Has Been Collecting Broadband Price Data for Years

Since 2014, the Federal Communications Commission has collected detailed price data on nearly 24,000 broadband plans through its “Urban Rate Survey.” The FCC uses the survey data to “determine the reasonable comparability benchmarks for fixed voice and broadband rates for universal service purposes.” The presence of this data and analysis of it yield three conclusions:

• Policymakers are not aware of the extent of the data the FCC collects, including, in this case, on broadband prices.
• Prices across speed tiers (except the slowest in the group, 10 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up) have decreased, download and upload speeds have increased, and data usage allowances (data caps) have increased.
• The FCC could combine the Urban Rate Survey with non-public subscription data from Form 477 to create a quality-adjusted consumer broadband price index.