Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cable.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 415 posts

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

#171

Post by smabie »

soneca wrote: 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

That doesn't make any sense, PPP is used to come up with "real" exchange rates based on price differentials. If you used PPP as the exchange, all countries would have the exact same price per GB.

For example, if a GB is $1 in America and 2 euros in Germany, then we would use a 1:2 ratio for converting the price. So Germany's PPP price would now be $1 in dollars as well. As you can see, this isn't very helpful.

PPP's fundamental assumption is the law of one price, so it's no surprise that all the prices would be the same using it.

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

#172

Post by smabie »

goshx wrote: post #168
soneca wrote: 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.

PPP converts everything into USD, just using a different method. PPP has nothing to do with a person's salary. If they used PPP, every GB would be the same price for every single country. That's where the "parity" part comes in.

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

#173

Post by soneca »

smabie wrote: post #171
soneca wrote: 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

That doesn't make any sense, PPP is used to come up with "real" exchange rates based on price differentials. If you used PPP as the exchange, all countries would have the exact same price per GB. For example, if a GB is $1 in America and 2 euros in Germany, then we would use a 1:2 ratio for converting the price. So Germany's PPP price would now be $1 in dollars as well. As you can see, this isn't very helpful. PPP's…

It would compare the price relative to other goods in the same country. It makes sense to me, what am I missing?

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

#174

Post by fyfy18 »

henrikf wrote: post #155

If I understand the methodology correctly this study seems to penalize unlimited plans quite a lot. In the linked methodology pdf they specify that the price for 1 GB of data for unlimited plans is calculated by dividing by the average data usage per user but limited plans are divided by the limit. For example in Finland almost all plans are unlimited and users regularly use a lot of mobile data. Average monthly use…

I live in Lithuania and that also appears to be the case here. The cheapest mobile plans from the main operators start at around 8€/mo for 1GB data with unlimited calls and texts. To be fair I would say these type of plans are actually quite expensive compared to the rest of Europe. But there are plenty of data-only plans which work out a lot cheaper.

The cheapest provider sells unlimited data for 2.90€/mo, but the speed is limited and they are a smaller player so their coverage is too. From the big players, truly unlimited data with no speed caps is 20€/mo (the largest capped plan is 120GB for 11€/mo, 0.09c/GB). And of course they have discounts if you have other services from the same provider.

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

#175

Post by goshx »

smabie wrote: post #171
soneca wrote: 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

That doesn't make any sense, PPP is used to come up with "real" exchange rates based on price differentials. If you used PPP as the exchange, all countries would have the exact same price per GB. For example, if a GB is $1 in America and 2 euros in Germany, then we would use a 1:2 ratio for converting the price. So Germany's PPP price would now be $1 in dollars as well. As you can see, this isn't very helpful. PPP's…

Something is cheap or expensive in each country based on what % of the salary of a person living in those countries a good or service costs. Converting to USD and assuming that it looks cheap to an american is silly.

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

#176

Post by smabie »

soneca wrote: post #173
smabie wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense, PPP is used to come up with "real" exchange rates based on price differentials. If you used PPP as the exchange, all countries would have the exact same price per GB. For example, if a GB is $1 in America and 2 euros in Germany, then we would use a 1:2 ratio for converting the price. So Germany's PPP price would now be $1 in dollars as well. As you can see, this isn't very helpful. PPP's…

It would compare the price relative to other goods in the same country. It makes sense to me, what am I missing?

PPP's fundamental assumption is that a product in one place and the same product in another place have the same price. It's used to determine a relative exchange rate, by setting the price of the goods to be equal.

Using PPP methodology for GBs of data, we would first assume that all GBs in every country are the same price. We would then use that fact to come up with a conversion rate between currencies. This isn't very helpful for price comparison, since it's very literally assuming that the prices are equal. Working back from the exchange rate makes much more sense, because we are interesting in the cost difference between a GB here and one there. We can't compare the cost difference if we assume a priori that they must equal each other.

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

#177

Post by 29083011397778 »

donmcronald wrote: post #139
amingilani wrote: post #47

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…

Maybe, but those numbers are basically bullshit in terms of the real cost to get a phone plan with 1GB of data. I WISH 1GB of data was $12 in Canada. Unless you’re willing to make some huge concessions you won’t find a phone plan with unlimited calling, unlimited texting, and 1GB of data for less than $40 CAD / month. I currently do BYOD + 3Mb/s throttle + no support + low priority on saturated towers (IMO but not pr…

Last month my Fido bill was $21.11 CAD for both my girlfriend's (4Gb) and my (3Gb) plan. Due to a variety of factors, including (read: entirely due to) generous CS reps, both are heavily discounted.

Note these are data-only plans, without SMS or calling. We use the Acrobits softphone (iPhone) or the built-in voip client (de-Googled Android) with voip.ms for

- Voice calls

- SMS/MMS (in-app, forwarded to any cell number, or via any email client)

- Transcribed voicemail

- Automatic call recording, and

- Spam-call blocking by configuring an IVR (spam callers can't press "1" to continue).

I've no relation to Acrobits, Fido, or voip.ms aside from being a customer, though I happily recommend all three.

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

#178

Post by smabie »

goshx wrote: post #175
smabie wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense, PPP is used to come up with "real" exchange rates based on price differentials. If you used PPP as the exchange, all countries would have the exact same price per GB. For example, if a GB is $1 in America and 2 euros in Germany, then we would use a 1:2 ratio for converting the price. So Germany's PPP price would now be $1 in dollars as well. As you can see, this isn't very helpful. PPP's…

Something is cheap or expensive in each country based on what % of the salary of a person living in those countries a good or service costs. Converting to USD and assuming that it looks cheap to an american is silly.

Sure, that's a fair point, but that has nothing to do with PPP. PPP is about exchange rates, not about goods.

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

#179

Post by sn41 »

jdietrich wrote: post #138
nippoo wrote: 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…

India is a remarkable success story in mobile data. A great deal of that success is due to Reliance Jio, who launched an LTE-only network in 2016 and totally disrupted the Indian market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jio

... to the point of killing off nearly all other competitors. They are neatly poised if they now want to do monopoly-based price gouging, or create a walled dystopia.

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

#180

Post by soneca »

smabie wrote: post #176
soneca wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would compare the price relative to other goods in the same country. It makes sense to me, what am I missing?

PPP's fundamental assumption is that a product in one place and the same product in another place have the same price. It's used to determine a relative exchange rate, by setting the price of the goods to be equal. Using PPP methodology for GBs of data, we would first assume that all GBs in every country are the same price. We would then use that fact to come up with a conversion rate between currencies. This isn't v…

But if you calculate PPP for a basket of goods instead of exclusively for internet GB, it shows the comparison that I would like to see, doesn’t it?

I had the impression that using PPP for a basket of goods is how it is usually used.

Post reply on HN