Despite the ample hype over gigabit fiber and next-gen ( 5G ) wireless, the reality is there are huge swaths of America where broadband competition is actually getting worse.

In countless markets nationwide, phone companies like Frontier, Verizon, and CenturyLink have all but given up on upgrading aging DSL lines at any real scale, pivoting instead to business services or flinging video ads at Millennials. This apathy has gifted cable giants with a greater monopoly over broadband than ever in many areas, especially at faster speeds.

And while the slow strangulation of real fixed-line broadband competition is great news for Comcast, it’s decidedly less stellar news for you.

Eroded competition not only ensures you can’t switch ISPs to punish terrible customer service or net neutrality violations, but it means millions of you will continue to pay higher and higher prices for speeds straight out of 2002.

A new study by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance drives that point home.

According to the report, tens of millions of AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink customers are stuck paying an arm and a leg for last-generation DSL that fails to even meet the FCC’s 25 Mbps definition of broadband. Frequently, these users are paying the same rate for substandard speeds as those in more competitive markets pay for much faster service.

“In recent years AT&T and Verizon, the nation’s two largest telco Internet providers, have eliminated their cheaper rate tiers for low and mid-speed Internet access, except at the very slowest levels,” notes the report.

Ideally, customers on slower DSL lines (say 1-6 Mbps downstream) should pay less money. But thanks to no competition, that’s not happening. Frequently, these users are told they have to pay higher and higher rates for the same slow DSL, with upgrades nowhere in sight.

For example, many users on lines as slow as 1.5 Mbps downstream are stuck paying $63-$65 a month. That doesn’t include misleading fees or usage caps and overage penalties, which drive up consumer costs even higher.

Meanwhile in healthier markets, symmetrical gigabit broadband tiers often cost roughly the same ($70), though that price point jumps to $120 or more when there’s limited competition.