After years of rapid declines, longhaul bandwidth prices on many major routes have stabilised — and even risen — in recent months, according to TeleGeography’s Bandwidth Pricing Database.

On the world’s busiest international communications route, New York to London, monthly lease prices for 155Mbit/s circuits have increased slightly each month since April 2002. Over the same period, bandwidth prices for most major US domestic routes have experienced only small declines of 2-4%, with price increases in a few cases.

The median market price for a 155Mbit/s monthly lease on the Atlanta to New York route, for example, increased 4.6%.

So why the price stabilisation? First, some of the most aggressive carriers are no longer competing across the same range of markets due to restructuring; second, price is no longer the primary consideration of bandwidth buyers.

Some of the more established carriers have taken advantage of their clients’ renewed interest in stable supplier relationships by hiking prices.