Broadband Speeds in Fibered us Markets: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

Broadband deployment policies have directly subsidized fiber providers because fiber broadband delivers fast download speeds. This article examines whether recent fiber buildout has increased competition for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines (aDSL) and cable incumbents and whether entry by a fiber competitor predicts faster incumbent download speeds. Despite significant growth in fiber broadband service in the United States between 2014 and 2019, the number of fiber competitors in census blocks with aDSL or cable incumbents remains low. Further, our econometric results, while not interpretable as causal relationships, suggest that the entry of a rival fiber operator does not explain recent increases in cable and aDSL speeds.

Effects of Market Structure on Broadband Quality in Local U.S. Residential Service Markets

“…Additionally, they impose strong distributional assumptions on unobservables in their model, and the instruments they use to address potential endogeneity problems might plausibly be directly relevant to an ISP's quality choice decisions and create doubts about instrument validity. 9 A recent study closely related to our work is Kotrous and Bailey (2021). Their study focuses on the effects of new entrants on incumbent wireline provider service quality but limits the analysis to entry by new fiber ISPs.…”