Live data from Hacker News

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

cable.co.uk

161–170 of 415 posts

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

#161
post #125
post #69

Israeli here, pay 7$ for 200GB of data (well I pay 14$ for 400GB and use one as home internet backup because it is cheap). It used to be quite expensive here at around $100/mo for 10GB but the government broke up the monopoly and forced competition into the market by making existing players share infrastructure. We went up from main 3 providers to around 10 and prices dropped sharply. My government screws up quite a…

In Israel the caller pays for a mobile call, while in other countries the owner of the mobile pays. This one change alone is enough to explain quite a bit of the disparity in prices. I'm actually surprised the source article makes no mention of this.

I always feel as though having the calling party cover the costs of the call is one of the most effective ways to get rid of phone spam. When the receiving party has to pay it seems to create all the wrong sorts of financial incentives for the carriers to deal with phone spam calls.

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

#162

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 M…

This is why I disable background data for individual apps and keep data saver on whenever possible.

Also, browsing can be something like: - Ad blocking - Javascript disabled by default - remote fonts disabled - media eg images disabled if possible - cookies disabled by default

The first 2 are possible using UBlock Origin + Firefox on Android devices. Ad blocking is a must.

Also, you can use some local VPN app like netguard to restrict app's data usage. I don't remember whether you can specify data usage limits though. But it can prevent entire apps from accessing internet.

Then about web pages. On desktop I routinely use text browsers or simple GUI browsers because they are so fast. Even your regular browser can go a long way with JS disabled by default and ad blocking.

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

#164
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You know, I just checked, and they seem to have been removed those references. But from what I recall the reference was explicitly IRC. I remember thinking, "Why IRC?"

The levels of salt and free time available to the most dedicated of IRC users when slighted is a sight to behold.

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

#165
post #81
post #67

I've been amazed at the effects of this every time I've visited India. With data so cheap, social media use is prolific - people share videos and stream all day long - and public WiFi is far less commonplace since essentially /everybody/ owns phones with almost unlimited data plans. India still has a long way to go in terms of social equality, poverty and breaking up the caste system, but providing fast, cheap Intern…

Sorry, But I have seen the opposite effect of cheap internet there. People spend lot of time in spread hatred, fake news and animosity using internet service. I have seen this first hand with so many of my educated friends and relatives who were reasonable folks before internet boom and now they come across caricature of dimwit person. With so much information available on internet they still chose to pick lowest qua…

This is actually true. The fake news is over the limits.

The elder generation believes some WhatsApp forwarded message so easily that WhatsApp and Facebook are political propaganda machines. Google about "Whatsapp University" meme. I honestly wish anything should not be allowed to be forwarded more than N times where N < 4. And I wouldn't care end to end encryption breaked on forwarded messages in order to fact check them.

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

#166

In India BSNL Fibernet has stepped up their game. Even rural towns and villages (not all but the list is growing) now have access to 100Mbps internet for ~10 USD

$10 per month is too costly for many, we are happy with 30 GB per month 4G data which costs around $2.

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

#167
post #112
post #69

Israeli here, pay 7$ for 200GB of data (well I pay 14$ for 400GB and use one as home internet backup because it is cheap). It used to be quite expensive here at around $100/mo for 10GB but the government broke up the monopoly and forced competition into the market by making existing players share infrastructure. We went up from main 3 providers to around 10 and prices dropped sharply. My government screws up quite a…

> by making existing players share infrastructure. This is exactly what US needs to do to bring back competition. Sadly even Wheeler who reclassified Internet to Title II, excluded that part of it. Back in late 90s and early 2000, we had huge competition, exactly because of Title II (DSL, which ruled the net back then, because was under telecos automatically was under Title II, so your phone lines could be leased to…

There are a lot of mobile players who lease towers though, and prices are still high.

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

#168
post #163

I believe the data should add the comparison using purchase power parity. The price in USD being higher in the US than in Brazil doesn’t mean that the internet is more expensive in the US

Thank you. It is silly to convert everything to USD, unless the list is built to know how much who earns their salary in USD would pay in those countries.

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

#169
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

miles? minutes? metres? My high school maths teacher would like a word

Haha, completely fair. Though outside of cities, 30 miles == 30 minutes.

I meant minutes.

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

#170
One thing that is essay to miss if you glance at the map, is just how much cheaper mobile data plans are in Denmark than in Norway.

I recently learned about this when a friend of mine pointed it out to me while we were talking about the pricing of the mobile data plans here in Norway.

Here is a Danish website comparing providers in Denmark: https://telepristjek.dk/data-billige-priser/

Here is a Norwegian website comparing providers in Norway: https://www.tek.no/mobilt-bredbaand/

You’ll be able to read the tables even if you don’t speak Danish nor Norwegian, since the tables show contain the word “GB” for gigabytes of data, and the price which is in DKK and NOK respectively.

In addition to those tables mentioned, some currency exchange rates are useful to make sense of the data if you live in another country:

100 NOK 🇳🇴 ~= 70 DKK 🇩🇰

100 DKK 🇩🇰 ~= 143 NOK 🇳🇴

100 NOK 🇳🇴 ~= 9.42 EUR 🇪🇺

100 DKK 🇩🇰 ~= 13.43 EUR 🇪🇺

100 NOK 🇳🇴 ~= 11.10 USD 🇺🇸

100 DKK 🇩🇰 ~= 15.84 USD 🇺🇸

Post reply on HN