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The Wall Street Journal examined information from more than 3,300 bills for its study of broadband pricing across the U.S. We excluded more than 600 bills that didn't specify an internet price and used 2,694 bills for our analysis.

We used 377 bills that were directly submitted to the WSJ by individuals and 183 bills provided by BillFixers. Data from 2,134 bills was provided by Billshark. BillFixers and Billshark redacted names and personally identifying information. Both firms help consumers negotiate better rates with cable and telecommunications providers.

We examined bills from 54 different broadband providers. Most of the bills came from Charter Communications Inc. (1,024), Comcast Corp. (705), AT&T Inc. (232) and Verizon Communications Inc. (197), four of the biggest broadband providers in the U.S. ( Read our analysis here.)

To compare internet prices, we used the internet cost as listed on consumer bills plus any internet-related fees, including modem rentals, speed surcharges and data-usage fees. We excluded taxes and one-time fees, such as installation fees or late fees. For bundle bills, we excluded noninternet services and fees.

There were bills from all 50 states and 2,155 different ZIP Codes. The Journal used demographic data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey to split bills depending on the ZIP Code and their demographic composition. The analysis looked at median household income and population density. Multiple bills fit into one or more demographic groups and were taken into account as part of each group analysis.

Rural ZIP Codes were defined as those with a population of less than 100 per square mile. Urban ZIP Codes were defined as those with a population of 10,000 per square mile or more. High-income ZIP Codes were defined as those with a median household income of $90,000 or more. Low-income ZIP Codes were defined as those with a median household income of $30,000 or less. There were at least 150 bills from each of these categories.

Address-level competition data was provided by Billshark and obtained through Allconnect, an online marketplace for home services. Competitive areas were defined as those in which subscribers could get the same service from more than one cable or fiber broadband provider. DSL service wasn't considered a competitive option for high-speed broadband.

--Inti Pacheco and Shalini Ramachandran

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 24, 2019 10:14 ET (15:14 GMT)

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