What caused the decrease in bandwidth prices?

[Drake]

Over the past few years bandwidth has become very cheap. Is this just because of more infrastructure (more lines, hubs, etc)? Will it stay this way?

[flashfire]

more competition helped

[BRISK]

Supply and demand

[chupachups]

99% of the carriers around the world overinvested during the boom.....

[Greg Jacobson]

I stopped spamming.

[flashfire]

I stopped spamming.

that was you

[MrJackMeHoff]

bandwidth still costs pretty much the same just alot more overselling shitbox companies around now.

[WarChild]

bandwidth still costs pretty much the same just alot more overselling shitbox companies around now.

No way. My Bandwidth bills, with the same provider, have steadily come down over the years.

[TORTOISE]

spare capacity and competition.....expect prices to continue to drop .....

[Major (Tom)]

some people are still paying 200 an mbit. Are they smoking base??

Duke

[VeriSexy]

You can thank Cogent

[ytcracker]

You can thank Cogent

yea cogent

[teksonline]

The prices per megabyte for a wholesaler, remember the days where everyone used Maxim, and whatnot, always were paying something 35.00 per mbps to their backbone provider, Which is pretty close to what they are still paying, and they were reselling it for 10-20 times as much...

There are many factors why its so more affordable now, here are some...

Difference is the bulk of use has changed drastically, more companies and more competition. Back in the day companies that charged for cheap bandwidth also had charged for things like port fee's, electric, insurance, etc etc. and had limited rack space. With all the new super network operation centers being built, that carrier to all providers, almost all service providers are leasing this space at a super cost savings, and then have management offices elsewhere. Now you can have your choice of at&t, sprint, verio, level3, cognent, and 50 more all in the same place. so you have these companies competing over time in price wars. Cognent has never an issue in reduced costs, they have always been overselling their circuits and only used cheap price to end user promotion as a tactic of company promotion.

With this companies are not needing to build offices and all this technology and
whatnot, so of course the savings are tremendous and can pass them along.

Also computer servers have dropped in cost, and management of these servers has become more easier as systems and proper management have been developed, the software is more secure, and the knowledge of handling these for employee's is way more stable.

Still have many techs working on my servers at some places that really have no clue being on a computer.... This is another reason why you might be paying less

[ronaldo]

Supply and demand

The same thing that caused the prices to decrease for content.

[budz]

It's the end of the world as we know it.

[Pete-KT]

My T1 just went down from 500 to 350 a month also, its supply and demand now, every provides it and everyone has to fight over there prices

[Barefootsies]

You have the glut of telco and broadband before the bubble burst. Everyone was trying to build networks, super data, and fiber rings. So you have more capacity than will be needed in the next 5-10 years.

Computer costs have dropped dramatically, servers, etc, etc.

Competition is cutting the cost. With the glut of capacity, and the fact a T1 wholesale price is $41 (atleast where I live, and I know this because I was in telco for 8 years), and they resell it at $280+, and the Telcom Act of '96 where you have these third party prodivers who can drastically undercut the incumbants..

Yeah. So you take all of those, plus some other factors, and tada, price drops dramatically. Smaller companies can do more with less (i.e. Level 3, Trivalant, etc. vs. a Baby Bell).