Decoding the Divide: Analyzing Disparities in Broadband Plans Offered by Major US ISPs

TL;DR

This paper investigates broadband affordability disparities across US cities by analyzing ISP plans using a new querying tool, revealing significant spatial and economic inequalities in plan quality and carriage value.

Contribution

We developed a broadband plan querying tool and curated a large dataset to analyze disparities in broadband plans offered by major US ISPs, highlighting spatial and economic factors affecting affordability.

Findings

ISP plans vary significantly between cities.

Carriage value can differ by up to 600% within a city.

Cable ISPs offer more carriage value than fiber ISPs in some areas.

Abstract

Digital equity in Internet access is often measured along three axes: availability, affordability, and adoption. Most prior work focuses on availability; the other two aspects have received little attention. In this paper, we study broadband affordability in the US. Specifically, we focus on the nature of broadband plans offered by major ISPs across the US. To this end, we develop a broadband plan querying tool (BQT) that obtains broadband plans (upload/download speed and price) offered by seven major ISPs for any street address in the US. We then use this tool to curate a dataset, querying broadband plans for over 837k street addresses in thirty cities for seven major wireline broadband ISPs. We use a plan's carriage value, the Mbps of a user's traffic that an ISP carries for one dollar, to compare plans. Our analysis provides us with the following new insights: (1) ISP plans vary inter-city. Specifically, the fraction of census block groups that receive high and low carriage value plans varies widely by city; (2) ISP plans intra-city are spatially clustered, and the carriage value can vary as much as 600% within a city; (3) Cable-based ISPs offer up to 30% more carriage value to users when competing with fiber-based ISPs in a block group; and (4) Average income in a block group plays a critical role in dictating who gets a fiber deployment (i.e., a better carriage value) in the US. While we hope our tool, dataset, and analysis in their current form are helpful for policymakers at different levels (city, county, state), they are only a small step toward understanding digital equity. Based on our learnings, we conclude with recommendations to continue to advance our understanding of broadband affordability.