Age, Price and LEOs: The Latest Rural Broadband Data, With Scott Meyer

Scott Meyer is back with more data to share on how younger subscribers feel about broadband pricing, customer attitudes toward satellite and cellular service and more. Recorded LIVE at StoryConnect 2026!

Find the full 2026 Rural Broadbrand Subscriber Survey here: https://www.innovsys.com/innovsys/2026-rural-subscriber-study-2/ 

Creators and Guests

Host

Andy Johns

Vice President of Marketing

What is The StoryConnect Podcast?

StoryConnect features interviews with marketers, communicators, CEOs and other leaders at cooperative and independent broadband companies, electric cooperatives and municipal power providers. The goal of the podcast is to help listeners discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers. It is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources.

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Andy Johns:
What do the latest broadband and subscriber data tell us about
rural households?

That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of The
StoryConnect Podcast. My name is Andy Johns with Pioneer, and I'm

joined on this episode once again by Scott Meyer,
Director of Marketing for Innovative Systems.

Scott, thanks so much for joining me.

Scott Meyer:
Thank you. It's always a pleasure,
my friend.

Andy Johns:
In addition to Scott, I'm also joined by a beautiful live
audience here at StoryConnect 2026 in Tacoma,

Washington. (audience claps) We are excited to celebrate these
ten

years that we've been doing the podcast. And I don't know if you
know this, Scott, but you are the most frequent guest that we've

had. We've had you just, I think about eight episodes. So,
we appreciate you being on throughout the years for that.

These live podcasts are sponsored by Meridian Cooperative,
and we want to thank them for sponsoring once again this year.

Thanks again to Meridian. (audience claps) All right,
Scott, well,

let's go ahead and dive in. The last time we talked,
you mentioned attitudes were changing towards satellite

providers. LEO, Low Earth Orbit satellite provider,
we talked about.

Starlink is the one making the most noise,
but Amazon's coming and other companies there.

I've heard broadband companies finally start talking about them
as real competitors now.

So what did this study, what did the study find when it comes to
that?

Scott Meyer:
Well, interestingly enough, really that's a looming threat.

But our data shows that there's a much greater threat that we
need to be concerned about.

And that is the home wireless providers are providing a serious
impact on our study.

In fact, in 2025 when we asked the question,
which of the following do you use as your home internet service

provider? Only 15% said they were cell phone only.

But this year that jumped from 15% last year to 24% this year.

So I'm not dismissing the satellite as a looming threat.

I think the more immediate threat is like the Verizon Home
Wireless,

T-Mobile, those types of things.

And the biggest problem I think we have there,
Andy, is as the rural companies,

they cannot bring to the table these special offers,
like a year's worth of NFL ticket or YouTube TV or

super low prices. And that makes it difficult because as we're
going to see as we get a little farther into our discussion,

a lot of people, they don't even know what their speed is.

And because of that lack of knowledge,
they're very vulnerable to slick promotions that these wireless

providers have the money to do.

Andy Johns:
And I know we were counting on broadband labels,
helping with transparency there. Those are kind of going by the

wayside. So yeah, it's tougher,
tougher than ever to get folks to understand what's going on.

I remember also last time we talked,
and this is going back a ways because we go back a ways,

but the pandemic was really a shift as folks finally started
listing reliability and

performance is the most important thing about their broadband
connection, not price.

For a long time, price was the number one thing.

Is it fair to say that since about 2022,
that's been locked in and reliability and performance has

remained more important than price?

Scott Meyer:
Yeah, I would say that's very fair.

And, you know, and we pulled our study and we asked this question
for the last several years.

And even though people don't understand what speeds they have to
the tune of probably 35 to 40%,

30% still say they would prefer faster internet and are willing
to pay for it.

So it's a kind of an interesting conundrum because we're looking
at,

you know, there's people that want to pay for faster internet,
yet people are still susceptible to cheap prices that the,

you know, satellite providers and the,
you know, Verizon providers.

And satellite is not as cheap, but now that LEO is coming into
the stage,

Starlink is starting to lower their prices.

And so there's going to be a competitive price war there,
which is going to impact the consumers in rural America.

Andy Johns:
Well, we're talking about pricing. One of the things that was at
least new to me in the study this year,

y'all may have had it on there for a while,
and I just didn't notice it,

but is looking at price sensitivity broken down by age.

And, you know, from past sessions I've done the generational
differences is something that fascinates me.

What did you learn about the different age groups and their
willingness to to pay for broadband?

Scott Meyer:
Well, one of the things that we found,
because this was a new question that we asked,

we asked, you know, how much more are you willing to pay,
out of that 30%?

And out of that 30%, 60% of the 65+ said they're willing to spend

to $14 a month more.

Andy Johns:
That's the 60 to 60 plus?

Scott Meyer:
65.

Andy Johns:
65+, okay.

Scott Meyer:
Yeah, they were willing to pay up to,
you know, $14 more per month.

And when you start thinking about that,
you start multiplying that out.

There's serious revenue that's being left on the table with that
large of a group,

you know, almost a third of the people surveyed were willing to
pay more for internet.

So really that's a challenge to marketers and to companies to,
you know,

use their systems to go out and offer,
you know, either speed tests,

taste test trials, or, you know,
give them that opportunity to understand what faster internet can

do for them. And in fact, some of our customers are now changing
their attitudes.

They are no longer selling on price.

They're selling on what gives the customer the best experience.

They're not talking about price at all.

This is, if you want this in your home and this good experience,
this is what we're going to recommend that you purchase.

And they're not talking about price.

Andy Johns:
How about the younger side of the spectrum? There any conclusions
you could take away?

Are they all, you know, mooching off the neighbor's Wi-Fi,
or what?

What features did you see, or tendencies did you see in the
younger side of the spectrum?

Scott Meyer:
Well, those who aren't mooching are willing to pay more,
especially in that 18 to 34 year old age group.

I mean, that group, over a third of them are willing to spend
extra $35 a month more.

Andy Johns:
35?

Scott Meyer:
Yeah, to get faster internet in their homes.

So yeah, those people, you know,
I mean, and that's kind of understandable.

You know, the younger people have a greater need for speed and
maybe have a better understanding of the speeds and what they do

for them versus that, you know,
35 plus crowd.

Andy Johns:
Makes sense. Makes sense. I remember being in that under 35
crowd.

It was fun. Let's talk about.

Scott Meyer:
I'm so old, I can't remember that far back.

Andy Johns:
Let's talk about subscriptions and packages that people are
taking.

One thing we know is they don't know what speeds,
what speeds they're packaging,

right? A third of folks, I think you said,
don't even know what speed they have?

Scott Meyer:
Yeah. I mean, when you break it down,
you know, it's 18 to 34, like we talked about earlier,

18% don't know what they subscribe to.

But then when you get 35 to 54,
a third do not know.

And then when you get 55 plus 43%,
they don't know.

And this was 809 people surveyed on this.

Those are some pretty interesting statistics.

And I really think that dovetails and validates the vulnerability
of rural consumers to be

susceptible to these ads from whoever it is.

We're going to give you great internet,
in their words, great internet,

at a better price. And we're going to throw in YouTube TV for a
year for nothing.

Well, you know, I mean, they don't know what speed they have and
they think,

well, okay, well, that sounds like a good deal to me. Let's just
do it. And then all of a sudden, you know, they're going to find

out maybe that's not what they want.

But for the older demographics,
their need for speed isn't as great as people in the younger

demographic, so they may be satisfied with it.

Andy Johns:
Perfect. And I guess we didn't fully talk about the methodology
here,

but it is important to note that what's great about this study
and the research that Scott has done is that it is focused on

rural households. So, you know,
tell us a little bit about this is not national stats where

you're getting Seattle and Tacoma and everywhere.

You're getting just the rural households when you do these
studies.

Scott Meyer:
Yep. That is correct. And so we're,
you know, we are specifically told our research firm to,

you know, we don't want, you know,
we're limiting to cities 20,000 or below.

Andy Johns:
Okay.

Scott Meyer:
And then rural areas surrounding those cities.

And this is all based on zip codes.

And we actually, you know, partway through the beginning of the
survey portion,

we get a printout, and we can throw out some zip codes if we
don't like them.

And we think, yeah, they're too close to Seattle or whatever. And
so really,

for a study of this kind, I don't believe there's anything like
it that really,

you know, penetrates rural America and gives them that
information based on that group.

Andy Johns:
It's great data, and it's why I love having you back on here.

Let's talk about the last couple of things here.

I think this will be relevant for the folks,
even ones who aren't doing broadband.

But the study asked all of the rural residents,
the participants in that were participating about social media

preferences. And it looks like Facebook remains the 800 pound
gorilla,

still the big one. YouTube is up there as well. What other trends
did you see in terms of social media use among the rural

residents in your survey?

Scott Meyer:
Well, I think sometimes, you know,
in our space, you know, as you know,

techno geeks, we're kind of thinking,
oh, Facebook.

Yeah. You know, yeah, yeah. But still in rural America,
Facebook does do a fair amount of,

you know, activity amongst rural Americans.

But YouTube obviously is extremely strong,
especially when you break that down into the demographics.

But then, you know, the up and comer,
of course, and we talked about this yesterday with some of our

groups was, you know, TikTok has really grown exponentially and
Instagram is staying stable.

But the biggest grower is TikTok,
whereas Facebook and YouTube have stayed very stable throughout

the last several years of this research.

Andy Johns:
Yeah, the demise of Facebook has been greatly overstated.

It's still hanging on for sure at the top.

Finally, I know that live TV is a is a service,
something that you ask about,

you talk about quite a bit there.

We've seen as we've been doing these podcasts,
kind of some of the decline and changing habits there.

What's the latest when it comes to live TV either streaming,
over the top,

any of the options there?

Scott Meyer:
Well, what we actually did a couple of years ago is we reframed
the question because we felt that over the years,

we weren't properly explaining to the consumer what is live TV.

So we explained to them that that's,
you know, things such as YouTube TV,

Hulu Live, DIRECTV, Sling TV, or your national or locally based
cable company.

And that really did kind of impact the data once they understood
what live TV meant.

And 16% of rural Americans that we,
you know, researched, it was just 16% who said they didn't

receive any type of live television service.

So basically what that means is rural Americans are still
watching live television to varying

degrees. Now, for companies that are no longer in the video
business,

those people are going to YouTube TV or,
you know, an over the top national provider.

But in essence, you know, our data bears out that people are
still watching live TV.

It's just how they're getting it,
where they're getting it from.

Andy Johns:
Sure. And I imagine that will continue to change here and there
over the next few years.

Thank you, Scott. I believe that's all we had to cover,
so I appreciate you taking the time to be on the podcast once

again.

Scott Meyer:
Thank you. It's always a pleasure.

Andy Johns:
He is Scott Meyer with Innovative Systems.

I'm your host, Andy Johns. And until we talk again,
keep telling your story.

Outro:
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