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

In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 191 posts

Re: In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

#161

Post by torstenvl »

ulfw wrote: post #149
bogidon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, as a single person I feel the discounts that come with family plans to be weirdly discriminatory. I go with prepaid TMobile (10gb for $40) because it’s much cheaper than a regular(?) plan with only 1 line. But to hook my Apple Watch up to cellular, I need the regular plan ($75 for one line + $10 for Apple Watch) as prepaid tech is years behind and second tier (most MVNOs included). That means that the on…

I've had every single Apple Watch since the original one and never had the need to get cellular for it. What's the use case for when you got a watch on you but no phone near it (but still NEED to be reachable somehow)?

Running. Phones are massive these days and impractical to take running. Still need to be reachable for any number of reasons (or call if there's an emergency).

Re: In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

#162

Post by rightbyte »

TuringNYC wrote: post #66
northwest65 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You also got charged for spam SMS Wait what? They charge you for receiving text messages or am I not reading that right? Do they also charge you to receive phone calls haha?

Correct, before 2011ish, you were charged for SENT and RECEIVIED messages. They often had "plans" where you would get 100sms/month or 250 sms/month, or a-la-carte. If you got an SMS spam, that counted to your allotment. SMS was so expensive compared to GChat/YahooMessenger/ICQ/etc that I didnt use it. But then you were on the "a-la-carte" plan of 10 or 25cents per message depending on your provider. Godforbid you sen…

The major problem with WhatsApp are that they joined forces with Zuckerberg.

Low sms pricing was on its way anyway since the cost of one byte sms was like 10 000 fold to ip data.

Re: In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

#163

Post by sumedh »

jlokier wrote: post #57

UK here. I pay £20/month (USD $26) for unlimited data, voice and SMS. I have two such SIMs, one for the home router (because it's cheaper and faster than FTTC) and another for my phone. Usage varies, but on a busy month the home SIM will see 100-300 GB, mostly for Netflix. The phone SIM sees about 10-30 GB. Speed varies by time of day, but at peak it's 90 Mbit/s down, 20 Mbit/s up. At the slowest times of day it drop…

> if they detected it)

How can they detect that?

Re: In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

#164

Post by pferdone »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #156
torben-friis wrote: post #11

I've got unlimited mobile data for a great price in spain as well. Honestly, I hope the us catches up at some point because software still doesn't even consider it an option - I have to actively fight all my settings so I can get updates, backups, streaming at high quality and the like because the OS considers they should always be done on wifi. Sometimes, the situation has been so absurd that I've had to use the sha…

> I hope the us catches up at some point because software still doesn't even consider it an option - I have to actively fight all my settings so I can get updates, backups, streaming at high quality and the like because the OS considers they should always be done on wifi. Interesting, because until recently I had the reverse problem. I had to fight everything on my phone (and occasionally, my system) to stop doing up…

But it‘s not just about unlimited data. I wasnt able to download a podcast bigger than 200MB during vacation, because it requires you to have a wifi connection. It just doesnt let you.

Re: In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

#165

Post by ocdtrekkie »

mackrevinack wrote: post #145
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #80

See, I just see that as wildly inefficient. Why do I need to stream videos on the go? If I listen to music, why wouldn't I have it locally? My usage is usually right around 1 GB a month, and I'm constantly on my phone, social media, browsing, etc.

yes especially with music, most of the time I'm listening to the same songs and only listen to new ones maybe 10 or 20% of the time

Exactly! I'd rather buy a handful of new tracks a year at $1.29 each than pay for a Spotify subscription.

Re: In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

#166

Post by mgkimsal »

nitrogen wrote: post #102
mgkimsal wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though I remember cingular offering 7pm as the unlimited time if you paid an extra fee I also seem to remember that if you started a call at (for example) 6:59pm, and it lasted an hour, all 60 minutes were "premium" minutes, not 1 "premium" and 59 "free/unlimited".

If you started a call at 5:59 AM (or whenever it was) would the entire call be discounted?

somehow I doubt it. I don't remember, but I strongly doubt it.

this would have been 'revenue maximization', much like banks that will order your check deposits and outgoings to maximize any fees for bounced checks. Process the outgoings first, so if there's any fees to be had, you can rake 'em in.

Re: In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

#167

Post by llampx »

tupputuppu wrote: post #143
torben-friis wrote: post #11

I've got unlimited mobile data for a great price in spain as well. Honestly, I hope the us catches up at some point because software still doesn't even consider it an option - I have to actively fight all my settings so I can get updates, backups, streaming at high quality and the like because the OS considers they should always be done on wifi. Sometimes, the situation has been so absurd that I've had to use the sha…

Yes! I hate the fact that iPhones don't update or backup over mobile. My unlimited mobile data is 300mbps compared to my fixed 100mbps. Why, oh why has Apple not allowed me the option of using my mobile data how I want to? I've got my mom and grandpa on same mobile plans without any fixed connectivity and the only time their iPhones backup is when I visit and hotspot them. It's crazy!

That's because Apple cooperated with the cell carriers to help them reduce the data usage from iPhones so that the carriers would push iPhones to consumers.

Re: In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

#168

Post by NorwegianDude »

mortenjorck wrote: post #49

The left side of the chart is a surprising cohort, hardly the usual suspects when it comes to being behind the curve. There’s the US, sure, but it’s actually slightly ahead of Norway, and significantly ahead of both Canada and Japan! You have two Scandinavian countries on opposite ends of the spectrum, two east Asian countries on opposite ends, and even two countries with significantly large landmass (look at Russia…

I would not care too much about the chart as it doesn't really state anything about what data it's based on.

If your Norwegian plan includes just 1GB data and free everything else then the price is probably at least twice the amount in the chart.(~12€)

If your plan has 100GB then a normal price would normally be ~0.46€/GB.

According to the definition written on the chart, you get "unlimited" data(1TB+) for 46€/month in Norway using the biggest provider. Data is a lot cheaper in Norway than the US, that's for sure.

Re: In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

#169

Post by rsynnott »

Arnt wrote: post #152
rsynnott wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably more down to limited competition in the US, honestly. Comparing costs across Western Europe, it’s hard to make the case that it’s an infrastructure cost problem; Germany (dense) is more expensive than Ireland (non-dense) which is more expensive than the UK (dense) which is more expensive than Finland (very non-dense).

Do you consider the cost of frequency bands a part of infrastructure costs, or is that separate? https://www.dw.com/en/fnord/a-49168657 was the top hit just now when I searched for 5G auctions. I've no idea how much telcos pay in other countries, but the top six hits for my search were all about Germany, which at least doesn't suggest that Finland is raking in record sums from its auctions.

It's probably not a big factor. If we look at last time round, Ireland, a country of 5 million people, got 450 million in the LTE spectrum auction. Germany, a country of 83 million people, got 5.1 billion. So per capita the Irish spectrum was almost twice as expensive as the German spectrum, and yet mobile data is generally cheaper in Ireland (despite lower density, generally higher labour costs, and other factors that would lead you to expect it would be more expensive in Ireland if cost of data was actually determined by input costs).

When it comes to it, 6.5bn _sounds_ like a lot, but it's only 78 euro per capita, and that's buying the telcos permanent assets which will be useful for decades to come.

Re: In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

#170

Post by ghaff »

ulfw wrote: post #149
bogidon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, as a single person I feel the discounts that come with family plans to be weirdly discriminatory. I go with prepaid TMobile (10gb for $40) because it’s much cheaper than a regular(?) plan with only 1 line. But to hook my Apple Watch up to cellular, I need the regular plan ($75 for one line + $10 for Apple Watch) as prepaid tech is years behind and second tier (most MVNOs included). That means that the on…

I've had every single Apple Watch since the original one and never had the need to get cellular for it. What's the use case for when you got a watch on you but no phone near it (but still NEED to be reachable somehow)?

People who want to run without water or any kind of fanny pack. I bought an Apple Watch and got a cellular plan for it and quickly realized there was absolutely no reason I really needed it.

(It's also true that I long predate cell phones--and also am often in places that don't have cell phone coverage--so I really don't have the mindset that I always have to be reachable right now.)

Post reply on HN