Phone companies want to be your home-internet provider – and vice versa

A budding battle between U.S. cable and phone companies has brought fresh competition for services typically dominated by a few large companies.

Wireless carriers are using the excess capacity on next-generation networksto win over customers who have been using traditional broadband-internet providers, while those same cable companies are promoting new and cheaper cellphone plans.

The competition, in some instances, has created a refuge for consumers as inflation is driving up prices on just about everything else.

The consumer-price index—a measure of what people pay for goods and services—rose 8.5% in July from the same month a year earlier, down from 9.1% in June, which was the fastest pace of price increases since 1981. The cost of internet service rose by 1.7% in July from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department. Livemint