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

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

#51
post #38

I am in the US. I pay $80 a month for TWO phones. My plan provides unlimited calls, texts, and shared 2GB of 4G data. When my data runs out, my data speeds go to 100kb/s.

Does that include phone payments at all? Because it sounds like you’re getting a not so great deal. I’m also in the US and pay that much for unlimited everything on 2 phones

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

#52
post #38

I am in the US. I pay $80 a month for TWO phones. My plan provides unlimited calls, texts, and shared 2GB of 4G data. When my data runs out, my data speeds go to 100kb/s.

You need to look at prepaid options. All major carriers have those. They are not bad if you like in or around a metropolitan area.

TMobile -> Metro PCS

Verizon -> Visible

ATT -> Cricket

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

#53
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent. American businesses love extracting rent.

In the US Jevons paradox is in play with debt and rents. Baumol's cost disease also means debt and rents are slowly snuffing out other types of economic activity.

You've got a bunch of buzzwords to describe why telcos in America fleece customers. Make it simpler for the rest of us, would you? Rent isn't a good thing here.

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

#55
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?

The chart is potentially misleading because it only focuses upon the dimension of transfer when markets can be based upon speed. South Korea oftentimes has tiers of data based around speed rather than a cap or aportionment, which is part of why its cheapest 1 GB is less than 1/4 of what it is in the US but seems comparable. My point is mostly that level of service is another dimension that is hidden from the chart that should be quantified to better understand the underlying trends.

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

#56
post #36

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.

> people who use more than 4GB of data per month probably depend on it to earn a living, and therefore can charge more

Just like a hospital who charges $500 for a band-aid.

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

#57
post #5

Not sure about South Korea, for instance, being at 202nd place for affordability there when unlimited plans for even pre-paid tourist SIMs are a thing.

They're only looking at total transfer costs and not level of service. You pay more for faster speed oftentimes in Korea and the baseline price may be a little higher than something like Cricket in the US but level of service even in the countryside is substantially better.

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

#58

Not all Internet experiences are equal though. 1 GB of internet in Pakistan ($0.69) ≠ 1 GB of internet in Canada ($12.55). I would gladly trade my Pakistani internet plan for my Canadian internet plan. Last month, when I was in Pakistan, my experience was: + highly censored to the point where even services like Cloudflare's edge-node's within the country were being MiTM-ed by the censors [0]; + I couldn't use "any mo…

Does it call out IRC servers specifically? Or any type of server?

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

#59

Not all Internet experiences are equal though. 1 GB of internet in Pakistan ($0.69) ≠ 1 GB of internet in Canada ($12.55). I would gladly trade my Pakistani internet plan for my Canadian internet plan. Last month, when I was in Pakistan, my experience was: + highly censored to the point where even services like Cloudflare's edge-node's within the country were being MiTM-ed by the censors [0]; + I couldn't use "any mo…

Surely, they can't be MITMing HTTPS traffic without Cloudflare's blessing?

Services not being available by region, that can be a bummer but that's not really a problem on internet service provider as such.

Also, I am surprised that one more country is building a GFW.

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

#60
post #34

I'm in India and I pay $8 for 84 days and get 2.5GB/day for those 84 days.

Just to add, while technically it's 4G, it's hard to rely on that and most of the time the speed I get is less than 2-3mbps and the connection is really unstable(lived in multiple places all across India). It was much better when jio was just launched due to less users. But now it has become race to the bottom and there is no way to get a good 4G connection in India.

At least where I live (or honestly wherever I've been in South India) Jio has been mostly reliable enough for me to even work remotely with zoom calls and ssh/slack. So YMMV is the real conclusion.
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