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The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)

cable.co.uk

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Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)

#31

Post by jeppesen-io »

jzwinck wrote: post #15
notRobot wrote: post #3

I don't understand, why is it that it costs less than $1 in countries in Asia for a GB of mobile data but costs ~$15 for the same in the United States? Can someone with knowledge of the industry please explain the reasons for this discrepancy to me?

Cellular service clearly can be delivered more cheaply in poor countries. Telenor for example is Noweigian (very wealthy country) but offers service at lower prices in Myanmar. One reason is labor costs. Imagine how much it costs to build and maintain one tower in Norway with its high standard of living for everyone vs in Myanmar where people will work for much less, and with lower safety standards. And obviously pro…

And cost of land and permitting

Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)

#33

Post by jeppesen-io »

inetknght wrote: post #12
notRobot wrote: post #3

I don't understand, why is it that it costs less than $1 in countries in Asia for a GB of mobile data but costs ~$15 for the same in the United States? Can someone with knowledge of the industry please explain the reasons for this discrepancy to me?

Rent. American businesses love extracting rent.

ALL businesses do

Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)

#35

Post by skylanh »

jzwinck wrote: post #15
notRobot wrote: post #3

I don't understand, why is it that it costs less than $1 in countries in Asia for a GB of mobile data but costs ~$15 for the same in the United States? Can someone with knowledge of the industry please explain the reasons for this discrepancy to me?

Cellular service clearly can be delivered more cheaply in poor countries. Telenor for example is Noweigian (very wealthy country) but offers service at lower prices in Myanmar. One reason is labor costs. Imagine how much it costs to build and maintain one tower in Norway with its high standard of living for everyone vs in Myanmar where people will work for much less, and with lower safety standards. And obviously pro…

As an extension to this comment, other costs that could impact the delivery price of 1GB of total usage:

- speed

- overall saturation of tower (# users per tower)

- population density (full coverage of an area may be difficult)

- technology; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_mobile_phone_sta... which could affect federal regulatory licensing costs, technology licensing and acquisition costs and competitiveness of market to provide technology, tower density, total user capacity

This is my laymen's interpretation. For instance, to blanket the US (9.834 million km² and 36 people per Km2) in LTE would be a significantly harder challenge then blanketing Myanmar (676,575 km² and 83 people per Km2) or even Norway (385,203 km² and 15 people per Km2).

Just look at the stats for Myanmar, 86 people per Km2, and I might be able to get most of them within 300-500k km2. My subscriber base is excellent!

Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)

#36

Post by gruez »

gtirloni wrote: post #13

What amazes me the most with my telco is that they charge $60 for a regular plan which includes 4GB of data, SMS and phone calls, but if I want to buy 1GB extra, it's $30-40 bucks. For a single 1GB of download.

Makes sense, because it's modeled on your willingness to pay rather than cost. They probably did the market research and figured that people who use more than 4GB of data per month probably depend on it to earn a living, and therefore can charge more. Yet another reason why everyone should get a dual sim phone, which breaks this sort of market segmentation.

Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)

#37

Post by [deleted] »

jeppesen-io wrote: post #31
jzwinck wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cellular service clearly can be delivered more cheaply in poor countries. Telenor for example is Noweigian (very wealthy country) but offers service at lower prices in Myanmar. One reason is labor costs. Imagine how much it costs to build and maintain one tower in Norway with its high standard of living for everyone vs in Myanmar where people will work for much less, and with lower safety standards. And obviously pro…

And cost of land and permitting

[deleted]

Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)

#39

Post by ampersandy »

franciscop wrote: post #16

This is an amazing visualization and clearly shows what I found while traveling through Asia. Would love to see this mixed with average salary per country, which I expect will show an inverse correlation.

I would have settled for a simple bar chart... these ring plots are useless.

Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)

#40

Post by georgiecasey »

rsynnott wrote: post #21

I'd wonder how they're accounting for 'unlimited' plans. In Ireland, for instance, about a third of people would be using Three, and most of their plans are 'unlimited' (in practice, there are limits after which they'll throttle you, I believe, but they're high).

Not only that, but at peak times in rural areas where people use mobile broadband as their main connection, Three internet slows to a crawl. I suspect it's the backhaul from the mobile mast but I'm not sure.

That's what's always missing from these tests, reliability. It's more important than data cap and speeds.

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