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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)

#91
post #72
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It probably does, and you'll find lots of ISPs, VPS and hosting providers also forbid IRC servers. The main reason for the blanket ban is that once upon a time (and perhaps still) IRC servers were widely used for malicious bot command and control systems and it's easier to just forbid them at all than pay people to spend their time sorting the good guys from the bad guys.

Even legitimate IRC servers are DoS attack magnets.

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

#92
One of the things that frustrates me about apps/web is that most people have no idea what individual apps/sites are “costing” them. Without additional tools and watching Cellular Data settings like a hawk, stupid things can slurp up your data plan.

Entire books could be sent to people in a sane format but a 3-line web page wrapped in garbage takes dozens of megabytes? An app that does “very little” is consuming 100 MB in no time?

Worse, no one seems to want to “pay” for apps anymore (demanding everything be free) but then they blow $10 on data because their “free” app is routinely shoving unnecessary amounts of data to their device.

We need some hard limits on data; if I give your app 100 K, you shouldn’t be able to use any more. Furthermore, the default data limits should be very low (with big scary dialogs appearing when apps request more) to discourage lazy designs that offload their true costs onto unsuspecting consumers.

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

#93
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.

I'm on a T-Mobile 4 line plan at $30/line. Unlimited everything except I think it deprioritizes data over 50GB/month/line. But I've never exceeded 10GB/month yet.

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

#94
post #82
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Important point. I was talking to my brother in India. Last month internet service was down in their building for 4 days. Unlike folks who go apoplectic over this, he understands that 3rd world prices do not come with first world service quality in practice. Most people do not have an option to move across continents just because somethings are cheaper there. And internet service is one small part of overall things o…

Although, the benefit of having cheap mobile internet / Fiber broadband plans is - you can have multiple redundant backup services! I spend a few months a year in Mumbai, India. I have a truly unlimited 300Mbps fiber connection as the primary source ($25/Mo), a second 100 Mbps connection from a different company as backup ($10/Mo) and my mobile LTE as the third backup ($10/Mo). AND my international roaming US Google…

you can have multiple redundant backup services!

My mom had slow DSL for years 6Mbps/1Mbps through the local phone company. They had stopped offering DSL to new customers for years.

I had to stay with her one summer while we were literally between places to stay. Our lease was up and our house was being built.

She got cable internet so I could work. She now has Had both DSL and cable for four years just so she will have backup internet and if she cancels the DSL she won’t be able to get it back.

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

#96
I live in Poland. I have, personally, no less than three plans.

1 for my mobile phone where I have something like 15GB of data for equivalent of 20USD (that including unlimited calls).

1 for my laptop, where there is a limit of 100GB for equivalent of 10USD

1 for my emergency mobile Internet which is unlimited monthly transfer but limited bandwidth to 20Mbit/s (I have tested, I have not yet reached a limit after uploading/downloading hundreds of GBs in one month I had to move to my parents in law), for equivalent of 10USD per month. This came with a LTE to WiFi router. I use it as emergency (I work from home, I need it in case my 1Gbit broadband fails) and I take it on trips with family so we have good quality unlimited Internet wherever we are.

It seems silly to me that you can have basically free broadband and so expensive mobile in a western country with technically advanced infrastructure. I could understand operators wanting to recoup their initial investments but in the long run mobile should be cheaper to transfer than broadband (there less physical infrastructure having to be laid and maintained).

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

#97
I wonder how they factor unlimited plans into this?

In Chile, the mobile internet is quite cheap (and usually plenty fast, LTE is widespread and download speeds > 10 Mbps are common) per GB but unlimited plans are also common.

E.g., I pay something like $1.50 a week for unlimited internet and calls, and since I can use 60 GB a month easy, that works out to ~10 cents a GB, considerably cheaper than what the chart shows for Chile. It's also about 100x cheaper than the $10/GB ballpark I paid in Canada. Yeah, one hundred times cheaper.

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

#98
post #79

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…

Important point. I was talking to my brother in India. Last month internet service was down in their building for 4 days. Unlike folks who go apoplectic over this, he understands that 3rd world prices do not come with first world service quality in practice. Most people do not have an option to move across continents just because somethings are cheaper there. And internet service is one small part of overall things o…

fwiw many of my coworkers in the Northeast US suffered multiday internet and power outages due to the storm that forced them to either take days off or travel >30m to find places with internet.

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

#99
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?

I’m not sure about the other two, but T-Mobile has an unlimited data plan that is $40 a month for unlimited everything for a phone and $20 month unlimited for tablets if you have at least one phone on the plan. They don’t throttle you but they do prioritize your data over 50GB. I’ve never seen it happen.

But because you can’t just add more wires to the airwaves, there is a limited amount of bandwidth no matter what you do. So that’s fair.

They offer unlimited tethering still 512Kbps.

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