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In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

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Re: In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

#61

Post by tchalla »

RIMR wrote: post #47
tchalla wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the fact that it only costs 9 cents a GB is amazing. 9cents in India would be equivalent to 1.91 USD after taking into account Purchasing Power Parity (OECD 2019). Therefore, you are in effect saying 1.91 USD per GB is amazing. You can not compare values without including purchasing power disparities.

PPP should not have this kind of effect over a renewable globalized asset like data.

You can not simply compare a good in two different currencies without normalisation for disposable income, value and purchasing power. The value of 100$ in India is different than in the US. So obviously, some things in India will be cheap in $$$. You have to normalise on some metric. I chose PPP which is not perfect. If you do not like it, you can choose another reasonable one.

Re: In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

#62

Post by tchalla »

iguy wrote: post #54
tchalla wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can not compare two currencies without including the parities. In terms of the US dollar, India has a Purchasing Power Parity of 21.276 as of 2019 [0]. > Purchasing power parities (PPPs) are the rates of currency conversion that try to equalise the purchasing power of different currencies, by eliminating the differences in price levels between countries. The basket of goods and services priced is a sample of all…

I'm not sure PPP is a great measure here. It works best when comparing people with relatively similar consumption, e.g. asking about the material lives of engineers in east- vs. west-germany. Both had cars, radios, apartments with indoor plumbing, and awful haircuts, but they paid for them with different money. Any exchange rate was basically a fiction, but even if the currencies had been freely traded, these two sti…

It's fine to take another normalisation metric - no metric is perfect. The point was that there is a normalisation needed. Far too often I see a comment which states, "Oh! It is just 1$ so cheap!". I chose PPP because it is meant for making parities. So, 9cents may or may not be cheap. We don't know until we use a normalisation factor.

Re: In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

#63

Post by shripadk »

tchalla wrote: post #60
shripadk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are not comparing data usage, we are comparing the value of two different currencies. The value of 100 US$ in India is different from that in the US or the EU. In order to normalise the value between two currencies, PPP is used. It doesn't matter what the 100US$ is spent on, data or food. But you are comparing value of currencies by comparing two equal goods. That would mean also comparing acquisition of raw mat…

> If PPP is 21.3 (2019 data) between USA and India, a Harley Davidson in India should be 21.3 times cheaper than a Harley Davidson in USA. It isn't. The cost is pretty much the same. So is the case with iPhones. Even if iPhones are manufactured in India it would still cost slightly less than in USA. It will never be 21.3 times cheaper. PPP does not mean that Harley Davidson in India would be 21.3 times cheaper. It me…

> It means that the value of Harley Davidson in India in US$ would be equivalent in the US when the price is 21.3x

You lost me here. Can you elaborate on this more please? When it came to data comparisons you literally did multiply 21.3 with 9 cents and arrived at the value of 1.91$ per GB. So how is your comparing data costs using PPP as a normalizing factor fine but not fine when it comes to me comparing cost of manufacturing an iPhone or a Harley Davidson in both countries? Your argument isn't consistent. How can you ignore exchange rate and only look at PPP and decide the cost of living? It just doesn't make sense to me. Sure PPP gives a rough idea about where countries stand relative to the US when it comes to purchasing power parity but, more often than not, it is too far off from ground reality.

Re: In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

#64

Post by iguy »

tchalla wrote: post #62
iguy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure PPP is a great measure here. It works best when comparing people with relatively similar consumption, e.g. asking about the material lives of engineers in east- vs. west-germany. Both had cars, radios, apartments with indoor plumbing, and awful haircuts, but they paid for them with different money. Any exchange rate was basically a fiction, but even if the currencies had been freely traded, these two sti…

It's fine to take another normalisation metric - no metric is perfect. The point was that there is a normalisation needed. Far too often I see a comment which states, "Oh! It is just 1$ so cheap!". I chose PPP because it is meant for making parities. So, 9cents may or may not be cheap. We don't know until we use a normalisation factor.

People talk about dog-years too, but past some very crude level there's no avoiding knowing something about about the lives of dogs, or parrots, or goldfish. At which point it's less confusing to use ordinary earth-years for everyone.

Re: In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

#65

Post by cosmie »

JadeNB wrote: post #36
alkonaut wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At that rate I am guessing the network doesn't have to deal with rain or snow What’s the connection between weather and fiber?

> What’s the connection between weather and fiber? Exposed cables (and there are some, at least in US—my installer had to run some last-mile cables from the nearest, uh, tower, I guess, to my house) suffer from poor weather.

They didn't come back and bury those?

I have AT&T Fiber – the installer ran a line from the nearest fiber hut to my home (across several neighbors' yards and a storm water runoff/drainage area), and left it exposed. But a separate truck rolled through about a week later and microtrenched it, so it's buried all the way up to my house.

Re: In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

#66

Post by oblio »

foggyeyes69 wrote: post #45
qsort wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any particular reason why you are assuming that housekeeping and child rearing should be the exclusive responsibility of women? I'm struggling to see any honest point in this comment.

I think OP was making a statement about how things are rather than how they should be. I agree with you that this shouldn’t be the case, but right now it absolutely is the case in India.

OP's comment doesn't add anything of value in that case. In 99% of cultures out there, traditional roles imply that the women is a homemaker.

Nobody reasonable assumes that women not counted in labor participation statistics are partying on the moon :-)

I.e.: we already knew what he's saying.

Re: In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

#67

Post by tchalla »

shripadk wrote: post #63
tchalla wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If PPP is 21.3 (2019 data) between USA and India, a Harley Davidson in India should be 21.3 times cheaper than a Harley Davidson in USA. It isn't. The cost is pretty much the same. So is the case with iPhones. Even if iPhones are manufactured in India it would still cost slightly less than in USA. It will never be 21.3 times cheaper. PPP does not mean that Harley Davidson in India would be 21.3 times cheaper. It me…

> It means that the value of Harley Davidson in India in US$ would be equivalent in the US when the price is 21.3x You lost me here. Can you elaborate on this more please? When it came to data comparisons you literally did multiply 21.3 with 9 cents and arrived at the value of 1.91$ per GB. So how is your comparing data costs using PPP as a normalizing factor fine but not fine when it comes to me comparing cost of ma…

Let me once again repeat what I have said and please take some time to listen and understand it

* You can not compare goods across two countries by simply taking the exchange rate, you need to normalise to account for different factors like disposable income

* I took PPP as the normalisation metric. It is not perfect but is meant for this purpose.

* If you are not happy with PPP as a normalisation metric, you can choose another one as defined by economists. If you want to come up with your own, you are also free to take another metric and agree with economists to use them. The metrics you have suggested are already considered in the PPP calculations. Look into them

Key Point : You can NOT compare good(s) across two different countries/currencies in absolute values.

Re: In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

#68

Post by traib »

tchalla wrote: post #32
_wldu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds awesome. Good, affordable connectivity seems to be a basic human right. I wish it was this way everywhere. I'm in the US and can only get 1.5Mbit DSL, for which I pay 90 US dollars a month (with a basic home phone line). That's the only Internet I can get. East Coast USA.

You can not compare two currencies without including the parities. In terms of the US dollar, India has a Purchasing Power Parity of 21.276 as of 2019 [0]. > Purchasing power parities (PPPs) are the rates of currency conversion that try to equalise the purchasing power of different currencies, by eliminating the differences in price levels between countries. The basket of goods and services priced is a sample of all…

First, PPP has its own issues [1] and is probably not the best way to compare the price of data.

Second, even after taking PPP into account data is still much cheaper in India - 30 USD per month for the thread parent after PPP conversion.

Math below:

PPP in [2] is National currency units/US dollar, i.e. INR/USD. It says that ~21.3 INR is going to buy you the same basket of goods in India that 1 USD buys you in USA.

9 USD = 9 * 70.394 = ~633.5 INR [3]

633.5 INR = 633.5 / 21.3 = ~30 USD PPP.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity#Issues

[2] https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-p...

[3] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/year...

Re: In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

#69

Post by tchalla »

iguy wrote: post #64
tchalla wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine to take another normalisation metric - no metric is perfect. The point was that there is a normalisation needed. Far too often I see a comment which states, "Oh! It is just 1$ so cheap!". I chose PPP because it is meant for making parities. So, 9cents may or may not be cheap. We don't know until we use a normalisation factor.

People talk about dog-years too, but past some very crude level there's no avoiding knowing something about about the lives of dogs, or parrots, or goldfish. At which point it's less confusing to use ordinary earth-years for everyone.

"It is better to be vaguely right and than precisely wrong".

Re: In India, smartphones and cheap data are giving women a voice

#70

Post by tchalla »

traib wrote: post #68
tchalla wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can not compare two currencies without including the parities. In terms of the US dollar, India has a Purchasing Power Parity of 21.276 as of 2019 [0]. > Purchasing power parities (PPPs) are the rates of currency conversion that try to equalise the purchasing power of different currencies, by eliminating the differences in price levels between countries. The basket of goods and services priced is a sample of all…

First, PPP has its own issues [1] and is probably not the best way to compare the price of data. Second, even after taking PPP into account data is still much cheaper in India - 30 USD per month for the thread parent after PPP conversion. Math below: PPP in [2] is National currency units/US dollar, i.e. INR/USD. It says that ~21.3 INR is going to buy you the same basket of goods in India that 1 USD buys you in USA. 9…

> 9 USD = 9 * 70.394 = ~633.5 INR [3]

> 633.5 INR = 633.5 / 21.3 = ~30 USD PPP.

Thanks for taking the time to correct me.

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