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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)

#351
post #337
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misleading. You didn't do five minutes of research. Singtel (the most expensive telco) has multiple plans for visitors (100GB for $12 + 500mins talk + 1GB roaming + $3 to spend on public transport). If you want prepaid month to month, it's still nowhere in the stratosphere of $10/GB. Also 4G coverage is virtually 100%, buildings and Faraday cages aside. (source: living in Singapore for 10 years, through 3G to 4G migr…

Nope, those are for tourists. I am not a tourist. I've lived there long enough to know what the rates are. This is from Singtel Hi menu: https://i.imgur.com/z6WmqYx.png Notice it says "Data plans" - They give you only data and claim to give you free incoming only for 20 days as a bonus. That's not even a bonus, in India, you pay nothing for incoming, at least on the Airtel plan I mentioned. Also, about your point on…

> I suggest you try 4G somewhere near Toa Payoh, Bishan, Bedok or even some places within Paya Lebar.

I’m with Singtel and don’t have any problems in those places. I even had 4G on Pulau Ubin today. Singtel has a $25/20GB plan for locals, $10/1GB isn’t really representative of typical plans.

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

#352

How do they measure unlimited plans? I've never had to pay attention to traffic metering since in Finland virtually all operators offer unlimited data. I seem to use about 100GB a month at worst which would put the price at around 30 cents per GB on my rather overspecced 150Mb/s 4g plan.

I don't know, it seems stuff like this are outliers. My country has the same - 1GBps/5G plan and when in middle of nowhere (like in vacation with kids at their grandparents in the country side), missing a broadband connection we all use hotspot from mobile, with easily using 50GB/day at least. And for 5 euro/month subscription that gives like 5 / (30 x 50) => 0.(3) cents per GB.

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

#353
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh, I though 30 miles outside of cities meant 15-18 minutes.

Driving 100 to 120 miles per hour?

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

#354
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>$10 for 1.5GB of data DAILY. to be clear you paid $10 and you got 1.5GB daily for a Month, correct? If not you are taken for a ride by Airtel. Jio charges ~$5 for a month and you get 1.5GB daily with unlimited calls.. bandwidth ~40mbps in tier 1 cities and 10mbs tier2 and tier3..

I should have been clear, yes you're correct - I paid $10 for an entire month for 1.5GB of data daily. I'll try out Jio next time, thank you for the recommendation.

I wouldn't recommend it. Jio has too much of a load issue, especially at nights. Airtel isn't the top provider in India, and thankfully so. Airtel is much much faster than Jio, even if it's slightly more expensive.

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

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1GB in India is pretty cheap+good. A small amount of stupid censorship but otherwise pretty solid.

I lived in Canada for about ten years. It's a ridiculously expensive place in terms of food and internet costs. At the time I was pleased because the best connections we had in India were 1Mbps. When I moved back I was happy to see we had way better internet, digital payments and banking services.

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

#356
In South Korea, where avg price is $10.94/GB and min price is $0.43/GB, mobile data plans are so much segregated that the goverment had to push cheaper MVNOs to the wider public. For technologically aware people it's more like $2--3/GB and telcos tend to exploit who are technologically less aware.

Given this and that telcos are universally known to be not super customer friendly, average price seems a pretty limited metric and distribution analysis should be required. Unfortunately their raw data has no actual data points for each plan...

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

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew the difference between a gigabit and a gigabyte but didn't know there were official symbol units for them. According to Wikipedia a gigabit is indeed Gb and a gigabyte is GB. Having the only difference be case was always bound to cause confusion. :/

Yes, I hate that, not only since sometimes people accidentally get it wrong like just now, but what if it's in all lowercase? What is 32gb? Oh it's multiple of 8 so it might be bits.... Imagine how great this world would be if we just settled on gbit for bits and any variation of GB for bytes.

32 gb is a bit weird. But when people write mb, it should be read as "millibit", which is terribly small.

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

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Metres, obviously. Miles and minutes have different acronyms.

> "due to the storm that forced them to either take days off or travel >30m [metres] to find places with internet."

Is it "travel" if you walk 30 metres? :)

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

#359
From what we can see in many of the comments, the research is deeply flawed. E.g. In Roumania with 6e you get over 50gb. Actually Digi(RDS), telco has 4$ subsription with 100gb lte plus additional 50gb 3G (total 150gb)/month. As for the speed, Bucharest was found the best internet connection in the world for games (a research released few days back). Thanks to the EU roaming law, some people realized that it's so good that you can use it anywhere in Europe long term (years, without going back to Romania). Subscribe in ro with the smallest plan 4$/month, and enjoy 1.7e/Gb anywhere in Europe, as long as you want!!! This is only for Digi (not organge/vodafone/tmobile). ONLY Digi allows you to stay long term in roaming (years). Here are full prices(use google translate): "Tarifele de roaming, cu TVA inclus, care se aplica de la primul min/MB/SMS utilizat sunt: apeluri locale si catre tari UE/SEE 0.0183 Euro/min; catre alte tari 1.4875 Euro/min si 0.0060 Euro/SMS trimis. Apeluri primite 0.0094 Euro/min si 0 Euro/SMS primit. Trafic date 0.0017 Euro/Mbyte. Apeluri gratuite in UE/SEE: 112 (Urgenta) si +40314007777 (info tarife). Multumim, echipa DIGI."

So, if you are anywhere in Europe with higher than 1.7e/gb, make a Digi subscription and you all set.

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