Point Topic: Nine out of ten best value broadband services ride fiber

NOVEMBER 29, 2010 -- Hong Kong is the home of the best consumer broadband values in the world, Point Topic says in its Broadband Tariff Benchmarks – Q3 2010 report. And, like eight of the other top ten services in terms of value, that economy’s broadband service runs over fiber.

Point Topic calculated the total cost for the first year of a broadband subscription in a wide range of markets. The market research and analysis firm included in its calculations not only the monthly rental fee but also installation, service activation, and equipment costs. After converting these sums to a common base using purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates from the United Nations and then calculating the amount per megabit of bandwidth produces, Point Topic produced a listing from which the lowest cost per megabit for a generally available, standalone (broadband only) tariff in each country was selected. Seventy countries provided enough data to qualify for this analysis.

In the standalone tariffs that Point Topic tracked, bandwidth can vary from 150 kbps to 1 Gbps. Many come with data limits, email addresses, or static IPs as well as “special offers.” To help comparison, Point Topic analyzed the amount a consumer will pay for a megabit of bandwidth.

Hong Kong came out on top, as the following figure illustrates:

Figure 1. Top 10 countries for consumer broadband Q310 and prices in Q210-by US$/Mbit (PPP rates year average)

“Nine of the ten best value tariffs are either pure fiber or hybrid offerings where fiber is a significant part of the local loop. The exception is Germany where Unity Media offer a cable service that is very competitive,” said Fiona Vanier, senior analyst at Point Topic.

“Prices are stabilizing in many markets around the world and overall in the last quarter there was an average increase globally. However there are plenty of countries that are still rolling out new networks and ISPs that are announcing new tariffs,” added Vanier.

Faster downstream speeds usually mean a lower price per megabit -- but the bandwidth has to be used for those savings to be achieved.

“Bandwidth will continue to increase as fiber edges closer to the consumer. Higher speeds generally mean better value for the consumer. All that remains is to work out how best to use it,” concluded Vanier.

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