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

cable.co.uk

211–220 of 415 posts

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

#211

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…

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.

Nitpick: 1Gb is only an eighth of 1GB and I think you meant the latter.

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

#212
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 numbe…

You got some pretty great discounts according to https://www.fido.ca/nac/choose-plan?type=byod Isn't Fido Toronto only or have they changed that? (it's been a while since I checked) Also worth mentioning is this marketing thing where each of the major carriers own several cheap carriers. E.g. Roger's has: Fido, Chatr, Cityfone, Primus, Zoomer, and SimplyConnect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_mobile_p…

I think you're over-estimating the discounts - the plans you linked were for talk, text, and data. The plans I'm talking about are here[1] at nearly the very bottom of the page.

Current plans listed are 4Gb for $10/month, though they would require being paired with a voip provider, as I mentioned above.

Fido is available nation-wide, AFAIK. You're likely thinking of Wind. Originally available in select cities (such as Toronto or Vancouver), they were bought out by Shaw in... 2015 (?) I believe, and renamed to Freedom Mobile. They are currently available in most major cities, and rely on roaming in less densely populated areas.

[1] https://www.fido.ca/consumer/tablets

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

#213
post #209

I 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…

Exactly, what a weird american way to measure network. I've traveled to many places around the world and bandwidth is rarely directly capped. It's usually unlimited* with a speed cap.

Right now for example I'm paying 50$ for 30mbps unlimited* yearly plan here in Thailand. The map in the article puts Thailand at avg 1.2$/GB which would net 42GB a year for 50$ which is a much worse deal.

Finally I feel it's very hard to measure this. If you look at the article's map the avg/cheapest/most expensive vary by an absurd margin. Again Thailand is 0.2$ cheapest and 7.2$ most expensive — that 32x difference. This data seems to be absolutely useless for drawing any sort of conclusions.

\* unlimited up to some point.

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

#214

One of the things that frustrates me about apps/web is that most people have no idea what individual apps/sites are “costing” them. Without additional tools and watching Cellular Data settings like a hawk, stupid things can slurp up your data plan. Entire books could be sent to people in a sane format but a 3-line web page wrapped in garbage takes dozens of megabytes? An app that does “very little” is consuming 100 M…

> One of the things that frustrates me about apps/web is that most people have no idea what individual apps/sites are “costing” them

It's not an issue with web apps but issue with outdated bandwith limiting.

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

#216
post #154

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…

I suspect most people are comparing the access they have to not having had access before though, not to canadian access

I just don't see how access is even really relevant to the cost. Content restriction seems like a governmental thing, unrelated to service providers. IT's not like the Pakistani internet is cheap because of the resitrictions.

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

#217
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

I think one of the main reasons it strong oversight of the sector by both the ACCC and Telecommunications watchdog.

It took a long time to force this, but aggressive competition by regional ISPs (especially Internode and iiNet) forced Telstra to allow access to their ADSL network, and once that was in these and other companies used similar tactics to force open other markets.

Optus aggressively used MVNOs to build market share in mobile markets, and while Telstra still charges a premium the generally decent quality Optus network has kept a cap on how much additional they can charge.

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

#218

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…

I'm with Public Mobile (they're owned by Telus now) and I'm paying $8/month right now. I don't use much data so I just recharge that when I need to. If you want to use my discount code I'll be paying even less ;) though tbh I think their cheapest plan is now $15 before any discounts. You can buy 1GB of data for $15 (which if you don't use carries forward) i.e. the official undiscounted price would be $30/month.

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

#219

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…

[deleted]

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

#220
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

I cant answer your questions on net neutrality, but I do have fond memories as a teenager of waiting 24 hours after a WoW patch came out to grab it from unmetered from GameArena to save my parent's 13gb download cap.
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