Good Enough Broadband

Throughout this year, I’ve been hearing the phrase “good enough broadband” to describe consumers willing to take slower, less robust broadband connections in order to save money. This is most commonly used when referring to fixed wireless access broadband, but I’ve seen big internet service provider executives using the phrase when talking about customers who leave fiber for any slower technology. This is not a new phenomenon. I recall statistics from five years ago that showed that up to 25 percent of customers in cities still bought DSL delivered over copper. Cable companies always tried to win over the DSL customers, but cable was always a lot more expensive than DSL. Now that copper is gone, and DSL is more expensive, customers are turning elsewhere. It seems likely to me that FWA has gained a lot of its growth from customers fleeing the increasing cost of DSL.