
Cost of 3G data in the US among highest in the world. - ajg1977
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/07/ipad-users-data-chart/
======
makmanalp
Cost of any cellular related thing in the US is among the highest in the
world. I don't know of any other place where you pay to _receive_ calls and
texts. Vendor lock-ins are rampant.

I was going to buy a smartphone but then decided against it because I figured
out that the cost of the plan alone would set me back $40-$60 whereas I pay 25
dollars for approx 1.5 months on my prepaid plan.

~~~
maw
Paying to receive calls is annoying at first blush, but it does have at least
one benefit: you're far more callable. With other systems, low level employees
at many businesses simply won't be able to. (I've seen this first hand in
Australia and Mexico.) This is likely penny-wise, pound-foolish on the part of
those businesses, but no less real for that.

Having to pay to receive SMSes, on the other hand, is hard to justify.

Just remember that complex systems emerge as often as they're created upfront,
and you'll feel better about it all.

~~~
makmanalp
But the thing is, even with the receiver paying a fee, the caller portion of
the price is still pretty high, which defeats the purpose of the idea.

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gamble
Before the iPhone 3G came out, it was impossible to find reasonable data plans
here in Canada. The only options were $30/50MB plans intended for
Blackberries.

What a difference two years make. I picked up my iPhone 4 this morning - 32
GB, for $40 less than the same model in the US. (3 year plan, unfortunately,
but eligible for full upgrades in < 2 years) The data plans provide 6 GB/month
for $30, with tethering included free and a $10-20 option to share the quota
with a 3G iPad.

What changed between 2008 and today is that the iPhone is now available from
all three major Canadian telcos, whereas Americans are still stuck with AT&T.

------
ugh
Sadly only data and no explanations. I would especially like to know why the
price is so ridiculously high in France. From my very superficial knowledge
about the French phone market I always assumed that it must be very similar to
the German phone market (I’m from Germany) which has among the lowest prices.

My hypothesis for the low prices in Germany? Fierce competition.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Also, the HN title is somewhat misleading, as the report is not just about 3G
data, but about 3G data plans for notebooks and tablet computers.

In many European countries, the 3G data plan one has in combination with a
mobile voice subscription is a lot cheaper per gigabyte.

For instance: in The Netherlands, the cheapest iPhone plan includes 150
nationwide minutes for outgoing calls (all incoming calls are free), sending
150 text messages (receiving messages is free), and unlimited 3G data at 2
Mbit/s --- for only Euro 30 ($40).

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dkokelley
At first I thought that it was because of the extra demand in the US (being
more developed that most of the world), but the same data being offered for as
little as ~$0.50 just confounds me. It's probably just the effects of a
monopoly at work, although it would be interesting to see more data and
analysis.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
I would think that regions that have the most mobile phone users per square
mile and that are the closest to major Internet hubs would have the best
rates. So to me, it would make sense for 3G data to be more expensive in rural
Alaska than in Queens, NY.

Then again, it might have more to do with taxation and government subsidies,
as is the case with the huge difference in the pricing of gasoline worldwide.
In The Netherlands, you can expect to pay $7.52 for a gallon of gasoline,
while in Venezuela it costs only $0.19.

<http://www.theoildrum.com/files/GasPrices.png>

~~~
jackowayed
I think you're onto something with the region idea. All the major carriers
offer nationwide plans because people expect to be able to travel pretty much
anywhere and still have their phones work. That means that we all foot the
bill for putting towers all over our insanely-large country because one day we
may run out of gas in the middle of Nebraska and need to make a call.

The European nations, Japan, etc. are all much smaller and more densely
populated, so the cost of covering the countries with towers is lower per
person.

If you're really just going to use your phone in Queens, NY (and other fairly
populated areas), you can go with a discount carrier like Boost Mobile, but
you'll curse your frugality when you do actually stray from cities because
their coverage map looks like this: <http://www.boostmobile.com/coverage/>
instead of this:
[http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/CoverageLocatorController...](http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/CoverageLocatorController?requesttype=NEWREQUEST)

Also, as I said in another comment, that graphic makes the difference in cost
look way bigger than it is.

~~~
Ras_
Finland:

31$/mo. for iPhone4 + 13$/mo. (dur. 2 yrs) for unrestricted 3G data until 1 Gb
transferred, after which the speed is capped to 64 kbit/s.

or

26$/mo. (dur. 2 yrs) for HTC Desire including unlimited 3G data with
unrestricted speed, free phone calls within the same carrier (covers over 1/2
of all Finns) and 2400 min of free calls/mo. to other domestic carriers.

translates to

44$/mo. for iPhone4 with crappier plan vs. 26$/mo. for HTC Desire with fully
loaded plan. The difference is gigantic, but iPhone still sells like hot
cakes.

Text messages cost 0,13$ apiece (single unit price for the most expensive
carrier, median is lower)

iPad is not available atm.

~~~
zokier
Phoneless deals in Finland: 1Mbps 10 eur ($13)/mo, unlimited speed 14 eur
($18)/mo. Both with no data caps. Phone calls 0.07 eur/min and SMS 0.06 eur
apiece. Oh yeah, and you get multiple sim cards, eg for your phone and
netbook.

------
jackowayed
This is pretty misleading. They assume that any unlimited plan = 30GB. It
looks like most plans are still in the $20-$30 range, it's just that a lot of
them are unlimited and counting as 30GB, or have an official cap so high that
the carriers sell it knowing that on average <10% of the cap will be used.

For example, Drei in Austria is $1.31/GB. Great! Let's replace AT&T's plan for
$2.62! ... Oh, that's only if we get a 15GB plan for $19.59? That's a little
better, but way less better than the graph makes it appear.

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tmcw
I think you mean _price_.

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detst
Anyone know if there will be true compatibility of LTE hardware on the US
networks? This would finally bring real competition and put an end to this
problem.

------
adolph
But wait, I'm still on the AT&T unlimited plan. Does this mean my 3G cost is
<DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR>?

~~~
relix
cost/data, so surely you mean a <DIVIDE BY NAN ERROR> because data would be
infinite?

------
jacquesm
Try 3G roaming in Europe if you want to see ridiculous rates. 3 euros / MB!

~~~
hboon
Roaming charges are ridiculous.

I was once at a sales presentation where someone borrowed my GSM modem and
used it for less than an hour. He was just trying to load a web portal. Bill
came up to $600. My carrier called me in the afternoon to make sure that was
me.

~~~
noss
There must be some kind of business opportunity here. The concept of virtual
operators that have no hardware of their own, just a brand, can they not make
deals with operators all through Europe and offer sensible data-rates
everywhere?

~~~
smiler
The EU are trying to bring in legislation to force the phone companies to
charge reasonable roaming costs I believe

~~~
jacquesm
The phone operators are scared shitless that people will run VOIP over their
smartphones and so get to a much lower effective rate per minute than what the
operators charge at the moment.

Typically a VOIP stream is between 2400 and 9600 baud, or 300 to 1200 bytes
per second. At E0.25 cts per MB for instance that would make their voice
tariffs look ridiculous and people would switch en-masse to VOIP.

They can't really win this one, either people will not use their data networks
and they end up in front of the anti-competitive agencies (OPTA etc) or they
lose a pile of money on their voice side.

Sucks to be them.

~~~
noss
I have heard this presented as "telcom companies do not want to be reduced to
be a bitpipe".

It is a fear I find to be mistaken. Even though a bit is a bit any way it is
transferred, things like latency, jitter, guaranteed throughput, those are
things that do make a difference to applications.

If I was a telcom company, I would start to write android applications that
besides providing VOIP and streaming video, etc, also would set up these
connections to use a QoS level that the subscriber would have as extra charge
add-ons to their account. QoS might require lots of technology on the server
side that isn't there yet.

If I was an evil telecom company, I might even introduce jitter on non QoS and
make VoIP completely crappy quality. Making people that pick this route sound
like real cheapskates. Aren't you glad I am not a telecom company?

~~~
jacquesm
You're not by any chance employed by KPN are you ?

