AT&T's 1-Gig fiber price in its most aggressive markets has climbed from $35 per month to $40 for the first 12 months — with an $80 step-up after that, according to new pricing data from Navi covering more than 100,000 broadband price points across more than 30 US operators.

The reversal, tracked in an October 1 Navi report and analyzed by MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett, marks a sharp turn in a US broadband market that spent much of 2026 in an unusual price war.

What triggered the price cuts?

The discounting began with AT&T. Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong told an investor conference last month that his company saw "irrational" pricing from certain fiber providers in the second quarter of 2026, which continued into the third quarter.

"When we see fiber pricing, standalone fiber pricing, in the $30 to $40 range for a Gig…that's what we mean by irrational. That to us is not a rational price point," Armstrong said. He did not name the competitor, but analysts widely read the comments as pointing at AT&T.

Navi's data confirmed the pattern. AT&T pitched 1-Gig fiber at $35 per month in some of its most aggressive markets and in areas where fiber service had just launched.

The offers carried no hidden step-up. "This was not an introductory rate; there was no automatic step-up after 12 months," Moffett wrote in his report.

How did cable respond?

Comcast matched the pressure. It temporarily cut the starting price of its 1-Gig service from $65 per month to $40 per month. Verizon and Optimum Communications also sweetened offers.

For cable investors, the damage went beyond pricing. Armstrong's comments were "the cherry on top of an already bad year for cable investors," Moffett wrote, as Comcast and its peers fought to return to broadband subscriber growth with price locks and mobile-broadband bundles.

What does the turnaround look like now?

The numbers show the pendulum swinging back.

• AT&T's 1-Gig price in those markets rose to $40 per month for the first 12 months, then jumps to $80.
• "As of late August, the average cost over the first three years of subscribership in both 'aggressive' and 'standard' markets was in the $60 to $65 range," Moffett said.
• After raising prices on September 1, AT&T raised them again.
• Navi's October 1 report cited price increases or reduced promotional pricing at Glo Fiber, T-Mobile and Ziply.

Spectrum — the brand of the recently merged Charter Communications and Cox Communications — has been the outlier. Cox markets saw lower broadband pricing introduced to align with Charter's legacy pricing.

"We don't expect that stasis to last," Moffett wrote. New Spectrum COO Nick Jeffery, the former Frontier Communications CEO, is expected to implement changes. Charter, unlike Comcast and its cable peers, held prices constant through AT&T's most aggressive promotional period rather than cutting them.

Spectrum CEO Chris Winfrey signaled movement is coming soon. Speaking at last week's SCTE TechExpo in Atlanta, he said the company must improve go-to-market strategies with revised pricing and packaging and lift its net promoter scores.

"We can do better. I don't think we should wait," Winfrey said.

Is a sustained price decline over?

Moffett remains cautious on the bigger question. AT&T's aggressive pricing could prove a short-term experiment, or a lever it pulls again when it needs to drive subscription demand — the data does not yet say.

It is too early, in his view, to conclude that US broadband is exiting a longer period of falling prices. But the immediate fear of a broadband price war has eased.

"There is always the chance that some of the more recent increases are simply 'normalization' after a furious end-of-quarter push to score net adds," Moffett wrote. "It's too soon to call a definitive turn, but Navi's new Broadband Intelligence service suggests that the direction of travel is higher, a development that should be heartening to broadband investors."