The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society reports…

The proliferation of expensive high-speed plans drove the change.

Prices for lower-cost plans fell, along with their availability

Analysis of the Federal Communications Commission’s Urban Rate Survey (URS) data from 2020 to 2025 shows that:

• Broadband service offerings at the highest speeds are expensive, growing in prevalence, and driving up average broadband prices.
  • For plans with download speeds of 2 Gigabits per second (Gbps) or more, the average price was $179 per month, more than twice what URS found that plans between 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) and 1 Gbps cost (about $80 per month).
  • The average price across all broadband plan offerings grew by 4.8% in inflation-adjusted (“real”) terms from 2024 to 2025.
  • Very high-speed (i.e., 2 Gbps or higher download) plans now make up 16% of the 2025 URS sample, nearly double the figure from 2024 (9%).
  • Fiber plans are also far more common in the 2025 URS than a few years ago, now making up 47% of the sample compared with 23% in 2022.
  • Fiber-optic home broadband plans have seen price increases in real terms – by 12.8% in 2025 compared to the prior year and 40.1% since 2020.
  • Inflation overall increased by 25.1% between 2020 and 2025.
• Prices for mid-tier plans (i.e., those with download speeds between 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps) declined 8.5% in real terms between 2024 and 2025 and 28.9% since 2020.
• Lower tier plans also witnessed price declines. For services with download speeds of 100 Mbps or less, prices fell by 13.4% from 2024 to 2025 and 15.0% since 2020.
• Fixed-wireless service – potentially an attractive option for those on a budget – saw price declines of 20.0% from 2024 to 2025 and 50.7% since 2020.
• There are far fewer low-cost plans available than in the recent past, according to URS data.
  • When the Affordable Connectivity Program was in operation, 9% of all service offerings captured in the URS were $30 per month or less. That figure fell to just 3% in the data for 2025.
  • Similarly, slower speed (and less expensive) plans became less common. Plans with speeds of 100 Mbps or less were 32% of the 2025 sample, down from 57% in 2022.