The map isn't that useful without showing what type of data it is. 1GB data is very different over 2G, 3G and 4G.
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)
#202Not 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…
Yes, but you are clearly cherrypicking data. 1Gb of internet in Australia ($0.68) is fantastic value compared to 1Gb of internet in Canada ($12.55). Australia's mobile data network is competitive on quality, and is amongst the fastest in the world.
I do not regard the parent as cherry picking data at all.
I travel a lot, internet experience varies wildly especially in locations where restrictions are in place. For example typing this on a phone in a coffee shop in China, VPNd as for some non-reason HackerNews is blocked.
MBps has with it a lot of nuance, and then infra.
Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
#203This study is great, as it points out huge disparities that are more than often not justified.
People have mentioned it and sometimes opening to competition have made huge changes on the market. Take France for example, people used to pay around $10/GB not so long ago. A new player came on the market and yes, didn't have the same quality of service at first, but clearly cut the price and now a GB is 10x cheaper. Better, they now provide unlimited data for ~20$/month (!!). As some have also mentioned, unlimited is something clearly missing as it can make the price/GB completely meaningless in some cases. I currently live in Georgia and at the moment there are plans for ~1.5$/week for truly unlimited data - speed is also great with ~50-100mbps and I live in a metropolitan, dense area.
A last point is roaming. This is where I believe most unfairness lies with big profits and ridiculous disparities. Some carries will charge $100+/GB for roaming. Sometimes could even be $1000+(!!!) if you didn't think of buying a plan. But in the other hand, using my French simcard (the one with unlimited data for $20) I can get 25GB in most countries in the world (that include all Europe, USA, Canada, China, Australia, etc.) And that's sometimes cheaper than local plans. Sometimes even better as it gives me the ability to switch between networks when coverage is low.
I know from friends who have been working in the industry that, prior the shake in France, carriers used to sit back and relax while making tremendous profits. There has been cases of illegal agreements between the 3 "competitors"/actors. Having a new actor and real competitor breaking the prices didn't slow down network quality and growth, btw.
Why not letting carriers from other countries propose roaming plans to people worldwide, regardless of your country of residence? That would become interesting...
Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Canada, we're mostly limited to Bell, Rogers, Telus and Shaw, along with some other provincial crown corporations. Our geography might cause a slight increase in costs, but other than that, limited choice in the market and high barrier to entry keeps our fees high I think.
In Australia we have three physical mobile network operators on a national basis: Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. All the other brands you see are MVNOs running on mostly Optus and Vodafone, with the occasional one here or there on Telstra.
There are significantly more MVNOs on Telstra than there are on Vodafone -- I think you'd be surprised how many more. I would hazard this is because there's a giant legislated fence down the middle of Telstra (referred to as "structural separation") that literally demands that Telstra's retail and wholesale divisions not talk to one another.
On a tangent related to that, though, I am very confused about exactly how Australia ended up with such a robust, competitive market when it comes to Internet services.
Importantly, Net Neutrality has never ever ever been a thing in Australia: Zero-rating content has been a thing since the 90s: when my friends had a blisteringly-fast-for-the-times 10mbps cable internet package (with, from memory, a 50GB shaped cap), you wouldn't bother downloading something until it hit the BigPond Games site, where the downloads didn't count towards your cap.
Even now net neutrality is not a thing: All of the physical network operators bundle in unrated Netflix or Spotify or, y'know, whatever. They compete on offering the best value-adds, as opposed to competing on crippling the service the least.
I'm thankful for it, but also it strikes me as particularly odd, in the current times where I expect literally every company to be essentially defrauding little old ladies to turn a buck.
Do any fellow Australians have any idea what the real reason for this is? Is it to do with the early legislation demanding Telstra's wholesale & retail structural separation? The mandatory (again, legislated) wholesale of ADSL by Telstra?
Why does Optus (read: Singtel) play ball? Is it because of the aforementioned issues?
I have so many questions.
Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
#205Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
#206Superficial looks suggests that price is inversely proportional to area size where infrastructure is needed and population density willing to pay for it.
Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
#207Taiwanese here, I think Taiwan's data is inaccurate. Our mobile carriers have a "unlimited" plan, which you can actually use unlimited data. The price of the plan varies a lot, but my unlimited plan only costs 499TWD/m(16.9USD/m), and I use nearly 50GB per mounth. But I'd like to mention there is no such as unlimited texts here, only unlimited data. I think this is why SNS is preferred over SMS and iMessage.
Hmm, that’s interesting. Why is there no unlimited texting?
Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
#208I don't know if "cable.co.uk" reads HN, but there is a mistake in the article: "Estonia is the cheapest of the three with 1GB costing an average of $1.27 and sits in 53rd place in the world, while in Estonia 1GB costs $1.85 on average"
One of those Estonias should likely be Lithuania
Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
#209I am wondering how did they get their data especially for Switzerland. Here most of the plans have unlimited GB, so getting the price of a single one is quite tricky.
Also, looking at the price for the most expensive one (~50USD) makes me think: did they maybe just took the price of an unlimited plan and used that as price for a GB?
Lastly, average in this analysis does not really make sense to me. Especially as some very expensive plans can skew it to very large values.
Re: The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
PPP is used to talk about money. For example, I could compare salaries in different countries to each other and using PPP might give me a better representation than the exchange. If we try and use it to compare goods not in a basket, it's problematic. Everything in the basket is the same price, but stuff out of the basket is now a different price. It doesn't make logical sense with assumptions PPP has. If you used PP…
Got it, makes sense, thanks