Two Strategies: Deep But Brief, Modest but Sustained

Within the set of plans that do promote, operators have settled on two distinct approaches. The first is a steep discount of short duration. Japan’s promotional plans show a median 86% discount, but for only six months. Germany sits in similar territory at 56% over 10 months. Argentina takes the brevity to its extreme: often a free first month, then straight to the standard price. Whether the customer gets a few months of near-free service or a single free month, the standard price arrives quickly. The discount drives acquisition; the standard price drives revenue.

The second is the opposite: a smaller discount stretched over a much longer commitment. Switzerland’s median promotional period runs for 24 months at a 32% discount; Canada and Singapore are also at 24 months and 20–40%. In these markets the “promotional price” is, in practice, the contract price — a label retained mostly for the marketing optics of being able to advertise a higher number alongside it. The snap-back, when it eventually arrives, happens at the same point a customer might naturally re-evaluate the plan anyway.

The Escalator Inside the Escalator

About 14% of consumer broadband plans now use a two-tier escalator structure: a deep initial discount, a moderately discounted secondary price for a second phase, and the standard price thereafter. Eir Ireland’s “Fibre Broadband 5Gb + TV + mobile + Talk International” plan illustrates the design: €99.96 for the first 12 months, €109.96 for the next 12 months, then €144.96 thereafter. The customer is not signing a contract at a single price; they are signing into a three-step ladder where the most expensive step is reached only in year three.

The Netherlands leads the world in this approach, with 56% of consumer broadband plans using two-tier pricing. Argentina sits at 51%, Mexico at 40%, Poland at 33%, Austria at 29%. Operators in these markets have effectively replaced the single price with a sequence of prices — one for the consumer’s introductory period, one for their established period, and one for their long-tenured period. None of those prices is the “real” price in isolation; the full cost of ownership lives in the schedule.

What TPIP Makes Visible – and What Aggregate Indexes Conceal

Promotional pricing is, by design, difficult to summarise in a single number. A 29% discount means one thing for six months and something quite different for twenty-four. A two-tier escalator means something different again. Aggregate broadband price indexes typically reduce this complexity to a single value — exactly the number that the majority of consumers, in most of the markets where they live, are no longer signing up at.

A plan-level view that separately tracks the standard price, the promotional price, any secondary price, and the duration of each tier produces a richer picture: not a single value per market, but a schedule. A market whose standard prices look expensive can be competitive over a customer’s first year; a market whose standard prices look competitive can be quietly back-end loaded.

Broadband pricing is increasingly defined not by a single monthly charge but by the sequence of prices a customer pays over time. Measuring affordability — for operators benchmarking competitive position, for regulators assessing transparency, or for the consumer trying to compare offers — therefore means measuring the entire pricing journey. That requires a plan-level, multi-tier-aware view of the kind only TPIP provides.