The European Commission published 3 studies in the area of broadband performance revealing very interesting data about how different degrees of competition may influence this market. The data comparison between EU and US is remarkable.

The study concerned Broadband Speeds, Broadband Prices and Broadband Coverage. A comprehensive analysis can be found in the press release of the European Commission.

I took the liberty to extract some selected conclusion concerning the comparison between the EU and US market, as well the performance of new entrants vs incumbent operators:

Speeds
The actual download speeds attained in Europe for any given technology (in particular cable) were considerably higher than those measured in the USA:
– xDSL services averaged 8.27Mbps in Europe and 7.67Mbps in the US
– Cable services averaged 66.57Mbps in Europe and 25.48Mbps in the US
– FTTx services averaged 53.09Mbps in Europe and 41.35Mbps in the US

Prices
The least expensive offers per country (in the EU) are, in around 80% of cases, provided by new entrants which, however, are generally not available to all customers, because they have lower coverage than the incumbents.
When taking a closer look at the countries (in the EU) where a new entrant offer is the least expensive one, the incumbent’s offer with the lowest price is on average between around 20% and 35% more expensive than the least expensive offer overall, and the relative difference is the highest for Standalone offer.
The EU28 is less expensive than the US for broadband above 12Mbps. For 30-100 and 100+ Mbps, trends are very similar for all types of offers – the EU28 average of least expensive offers is in all cases substantially lower than the least expensive offer prices in Canada and the USA:
– For the 30-100 Mbps range, prices in the EU28 are between 4 and 14% higher than in Japan and between 25 and 54% more expensive compared to South Korea. They are however between 36 and 51% cheaper than in Canada and between 21 and 38% cheaper than in the USA.
– For 100+ Mbps, the difference with Japan and South Korea is larger (minimally 33% and up to 74%). On the contrary, EU28 prices are between 23 and 43% cheaper than in Canada and between 13 and 34% cheaper than in the USA.