
What Does 1GB of Mobile Data Cost in Every Country? - swatkat
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cost-of-mobile-data-worldwide/
======
Hamuko
How is this calculated? Because Finland is completely saturated in unlimited
data plans and if you don't care for speed, you can get a relatively cheap
plan.

Elisa (39% market share): unlimited 1 Mbps data for 9.90 euro a month (29.90
euro a month for 150 Mbps).

Telia (31% market share): unlimited 0.256 Mbps data for 7.90 euro a month
(29.90 euro a month for 150 Mbps).

DNA (29% market share): unlimited 1 Mbps data for 12.90 euro a month (29.90
euro a month for 150 Mbps).

Moi (part of DNA these days, don't know if it's counted in their 29% or not):
unlimited 100 Mbps for 18 euro a month (23 euro a month for 300 Mbps).

I think Moi might be the only operator that actually sells fixed data plans (6
euro a month for 4 GB at 100 Mbps). Everyone else just sells unlimited plans
at varying levels of speed with the entry-level plans basically handicapped to
basically email syncing only.

Also, apparently the average monthly data usage for a mobile plan in Finland
is 34.3 GB ([https://blog.telegeography.com/finns-lead-the-way-in-
mobile-...](https://blog.telegeography.com/finns-lead-the-way-in-mobile-data-
usage)). Probably not going to be hitting that at 0.256 Mbps.

~~~
ksec
>Also, apparently the average monthly data usage for a mobile plan in Finland
is 34.3 GB

Do the fins constantly watch Youtube or Netflix on their phone? 35GB on Mobile
is quite lot. And that is an _average_ number. Or do they basically use the
Mobile Network as the Internet and dont use WiFi at home?

The same for Taiwan, 20GB on average. Once you take into account the lower end
of the spectrum using sub 1GB per month, the median number would be huge.

Hong Kong Currently uses ~3GB on average per connection. With Unlimited plans
at about $40 USD.

Those difference are mind-boggling.

~~~
Yaggo
A Finn here. I regularly use more than 300 GB of mobile data per month. I pay
35 eur/month for unlimited data, including three SIM cards (Saunalahti
MultiSIM). Makes roughly 10 cents per gig.

~~~
alexchamberlain
Brit, <2GB/month. How do you get to 300GB?

~~~
Yaggo
Easily. 4G is our household’s only connection, no other options in
countryside. 3 kids + Netflix, etc. One SIM card is our Wi-Fi network’s
gateway, another I put on my Tesla. One in my phone.

------
shoulderfake
Canadian here: I don't know a single person that doesn't absolutely hate the
mafia organization that is Rogers. Just letting y'all know

~~~
perardi
Canadian here: Rogers, unprompted, added 5GB to our data plan, for free.

Which is extremely odd. Because Rogers and Bell are, in fact, several
wolverines standing on top of each other in a trench coat. Very expensive,
onerous contracts.

(My partner is front-line emergency medical staff, and we are on the city’s
discount plan for cell service, so, it could be that.)

~~~
canada_dry
> Rogers, unprompted, added 5GB to our data plan, for free

'nother Canuck here... that very same Rogers you speak of added, then canceled
a 12mo term option onto my service when I called to cancel. They then sent me
a bill for over $400 for an early cancellation charge!!

I actually laughed when I saw it... the unmitigated thievery from this company
is appalling!

------
adonese
In Sudan (where I live in), numbers are a little bit different.

I'm currently using Sudani, the cost of 1 GB is 20 SDG. To USD that roughly
equals ($0.14, with rate $1 = 140 SDG). The numbers are the same for MTN, or
slightly less since i recall it was 15 SDG.

In office we are using an unlimited Wimax plan [1], and that costs us like
1800SDG / month ($12). For 4G unlimited plan, that is like twice the cost at
roughly $28.

Edit adding wimax wikipedia link [1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX)

------
blululu
I think this study needs more information to be really helpful. The bandwidth
is really important to understand what you are paying for. 1GB of data is not
worth much if it takes 5 minutes to load a webpage. In my experience this is a
serious problem in some countries. A lot of modern web services have a ton of
code bloat that renders them useless in environments where bandwidth is
constrained, though they work fine in high infrastructure environments.

~~~
swatkat
Most of the operators in India have nationwide 4G-LTE with pretty good speed.

~~~
noxToken
Conversely in the US, you can grab an unlimited plan for something like $30.
The first 2GB to 15GB (depending on carrier) will have full 4G-LTE speeds.
After that, you're throttled. 480p videos can have significant startup buffer
with potential buffering throughout the video. That's very different from
"premium" unlimited plans of full 4G-LTE regardless of usage.

------
neya
I experienced this when I traveled to India, from Singapore. I paid about $7
USD for a whole month and I got about 1.5 GB of data everyday.

In Singapore, I paid $15 for 1GB a month. Beat that. It almost felt like
daylight robbery when I returned.

~~~
Aperocky
> I got about 1.5 GB of data everyday.

How is the speed and what are you using it on? (looks like video).

That's in the price range where I would gladly buy a mobile hotspot wifi, if
the speed and latency is good enough.

~~~
captn3m0
Speeds are good enough for streaming (especially because videos can buffer),
but not good enough for WFH setups, especially because of the data-caps.

A little while back, there was some research that pointed out that mobile data
prices in India were regulated by a cartel, because of how accurately data
prices and plans were matched across all telecom operators. Jio's entry
shattered a lot of it, but even today - data prices are irrational. Buying
lots of data is costlier than buying a little.

I put prices for my operator (State-owned BSNL) here:
[https://gist.github.com/captn3m0/ab25123638b877cd8e3d9868f33...](https://gist.github.com/captn3m0/ab25123638b877cd8e3d9868f335ff51)
and some interesting insights:

* the cheapest option for me is to spend 4 cents per day to get 2GB data per day. However, it stops working the moment I cross 2GB, and I have to remember to pay every 54 days.

* there are no plans where you can pay for an entire year. Paying for longer durations is _always costlier_.

* All plans have caps around 1-3GB/day and short-durations.

------
ed25519FUUU
We've heard it said ad nauseam that the reason wireless bandwidth is expensive
and datacapped is because there's limited spectrum. How does that explain
places like India, with 3.5x the population of the USA but 88x cheaper
wireless bandwidth?

After all, the same amount of radio wavelength is available in any part of the
world.

~~~
jlokier
Radio wavelength doesn't work like that.

Radio is (1) regional (thus "cell phone"), (2) directional (thus "beam
antenna" to simplify the field greatly).

(1) and (2) mean the serviced space is divided into cells, and the cell shape
and size are designed, eccording to physical and economic concerns. For
example, long, thin cells are used along major roads. Where there is a higher
population density, smaller cells are used.

------
ebg13
In a country (the US) where more and more people have unlimited data plans,
what does it even mean to evaluate the cost of "1GB"? My T-Mobile plan gives
me unlimited mobile data almost everywhere I go in the world for long periods
of time and is in practice quite fast. How does that compare to a service plan
that only covers me inside one country? What about in a country as tiny as
Israel?

Freemobile in France also has (had?) complex rules covering what kind of
connection gets you what kind of data (3G vs 4G connections had different data
caps) and the French extended notion of "country". What are the equivalent of
DOM/TOM for mobile operators in non-colonial powers?

~~~
swatkat
Test methodology can be found here (they do touch upon unlimited data aspect):
[https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.cable.co.uk/mobile...](https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.cable.co.uk/mobile-data-cost/global-broadband-
pricing-study-2020-methodology.pdf)

------
gnabgib
This seems to be grossly miscalculated--at least for Canada (too).

They collected details of 60 plans[1], which is their max. The cheapest they
found was $2.5/GB, the most expensive being $140/GB (both of these are
incredible). They use the median of those sampled[2], but there's no weight
given to the plans.. the terrible data plan (100MB for $14) has the same
weight as a popular plan (2GB for $40).

There seems to be no concession for other features (roaming, minutes, long
distance, voicemail, caller ID, text) nor device subsidies (many operators
still include $0-200 flagship devices on Canadian plans) which doesn't exactly
level the playing field worldwide (every country has different strategies).

So grain of salt required - I pay half their "average". Is North America
expensive? Yes! Do I want 11GB/$? Also yes! (Although India's low price could
be a side effect of the Reliance Industries investment fever[3])

[1] [https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.cable.co.uk/mobile...](https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.cable.co.uk/mobile-data-cost/global-mobile-data-
price-comparison-2020.xlsx) [2] [https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.cable.co.uk/mobile...](https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.cable.co.uk/mobile-data-cost/global-broadband-
pricing-study-2020-methodology.pdf) [3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliance_Industries#Major_subs...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliance_Industries#Major_subsidiaries_and_associates)

------
voisin
Not proud to be a Canadian whenever I see data presented like this about our
telecom industry.

Watching the telecom oligopoly respond to any efforts to make the market more
competitive is a masterclass in gaslighting, corporate doublespeak. Quite
disgusting how we continue to allow them to get away with it and fail to hold
politicians accountable for not fixing this problem.

------
l0b0
The godawful presentation doesn't bode well for the accuracy. I'm well aware
that's a fallacy, but this is just so atrocious it's either deliberate
sabotage or someone is trying too bloody hard to get some message through.
This looks like a classic example of Tufte's "lie factor".

~~~
Symbiote
The full table is at the end of the article.

~~~
l0b0
That's a straw man. The vast majority of readers are going to make up their
mind based on the _visualization,_ not the raw data.

------
mensetmanusman
Wow, there is room for a 10x cost reduction in the US.

~~~
jrockway
You do have to consider that the US is a very large country consisting mostly
of empty space. The prices are set so that you can use data in the middle of
nowhere (or more realistically, along a freeway that runs through the middle
of nowhere), or inside a large city.

I'm sure it could be cheaper if your constraint was "only works in the 5 boros
of New York City" versus "everywhere in the country", but it doesn't seem like
people would buy that plan.

~~~
thatfrenchguy
the middle of nowhere is much cheaper to cover than New York City though, you
need a lot less antennas ;-)

~~~
tenebrisalietum
Cheaper to cover but you still need backhaul to the towers.

~~~
state_less
The backhaul can be wireless too.

------
vinni2
There is no way in Norway you can get a 1GB plan for $5.28. The mobile
networks have been constantly abolishing cheapest data plans instead offering
more data for higher price.

------
chrismorgan
But this doesn’t mean that you can _buy_ 1GB of mobile data for that price.

For Australia, it quotes an amount equivalent to 1AUD. (All subsequent prices
I quote will be in AUD.)

If you want to buy _only_ 1GB, you’ll almost invariably find it costs you $10;
under some schemes it might be $15, and $8.80 is probably the cheapest around
at present.

As you get more data, it rapidly drops to the vicinity of $2/GB.

But broadly speaking, you’ll only be able to get down to $1/GB once you’re
buying more than about 35GB/month on the Optus network, or more than about
50GB/month on the Telstra network.

And sure, it does continue to drop beyond that point; if you’re wanting
something like 100–150GB of data, it can get down to 50–70¢ (Optus/Telstra)
per GB, though you may have to shop around to find that. And there are
definitely outliers, mostly in specials (e.g. I can currently find 28¢/GB,
becoming 38¢/GB after six months, so long as you want 100GB), but I think the
figures I quote are representative of the general trend.

So yeah, this does feel as though it matches the data from the original source
according to their methodology, but it certainly doesn’t tell the full story,
and I feel that _as presented_ it’s more than a little misleading,
specifically because internet access and supply patterns vary so much by
region. Access, because different parts of the world use the internet in
different ways. And supply, because in some places mobile data will typically
be augmenting other internet access routes (e.g. home internet supplies
100GB/month, so you only want 1GB/month of mobile data) while in others that
infrastructure doesn’t exist, and everything is going through mobile data (so
perhaps you’d like a whole 100GB on your mobile plan). Also, any semblance of
unlimited access (which you get in some parts of the world, though not
Australia for mobile data) really throw a spanner in the works.

My conclusion is that these numbers aren’t all comparable. It’s comparing
apples and oranges: quite different so that you have no proper grounds of
comparison, but both are fruit, so you can still kinda compare them. I like
red apples. I don’t like oranges. I do like orange juice.

For Australian mobile data cost research: [https://www.finder.com.au/mobile-
plans/compare-sim-only?plan...](https://www.finder.com.au/mobile-
plans/compare-sim-
only?planTypes\[\]=noContract&planTypes\[\]=contract&planTypes\[\]=prepaid&mbIncluded=1000&sort\[name\]=monthlySortCost&sort\[direction\]=asc&providers=all)

------
wcoenen
> _This might seem counterintuitive, but most mobile networks rely on a fixed-
> line connection. As a result, countries with existing infrastructure are
> able to offer mobile plans with more data, at a cheaper price. This is the
> case for India and Italy. Countries with minimal or no infrastructure rely
> on more costly connection alternatives like satellites, and the cost
> typically gets passed down to the consumer._

If the above is accurate, that bodes well for starlink.

~~~
m4rtink
That sounds strange, AFAIK most of the base stations around here (Czech
Republic) are interconnected via point to point microwave links, as they
usually have a line of sight of each other.

This way they are pretty independent of the general infrastructure and often
work even if the area around is under water due to flooding (I remember a case
where they had to deliver fuel for generators powering a base station that
ended up effectively on an island).

------
livre
It'd be more useful for making comparisons to include a table or chart
adjusted by the average income of the working class of each country.

~~~
marcus_holmes
I moved from Australia to Cambodia to Germany over the last couple of years.
Australia does its best to cover vast areas of bush, driving costs up.
Cambodia doesn't bother outside the major cities, where mobile data is good
and ridiculously cheap. Germany feels more "normal" \- you can get access most
places, but it's not cheap.

But as you point out, the difference in actual cost is not as huge. In
Cambodia it was $1USD per week for 80Gb of data, because of the insane deals
all the providers were doing. But a decent middle-class wage for a Cambodian
is around $500/month (so roughly 1% average salary). In Australia the average
wage is around $4000USD/month, but data costs you somewhere around $30/month
for a monthly plan (roughly the same 1% of salary, but for a lot less data).
Not sure what the average salary for Germany is, but I'm paying $12USD
(approx) per month for an 8Gb plan. It feels about 1% of average salary
considering all the other costs.

~~~
Scoundreller
The Cambodian plan can serve as your mobile and home connection, while in Aus,
you’ll likely need a home connection too, so your costs are at least double.

------
dhruvmittal
Bad data viz alert: Why use area to encode mobile data cost when you're also
using the vertical axis for the same purpose?

~~~
Uehreka
And the horizontal axis means nothing.

They could've used some permutation of x, y and area to represent "cost of
1GB", "number of telecoms" and "average speed". But alas.

------
java-man
A simple sorted bar chart would suffice and be more readable, in my opinion.

~~~
swatkat
There's a table down below if you scroll down. Also, this study was taken from
here: [https://www.cable.co.uk/mobiles/worldwide-data-
pricing/](https://www.cable.co.uk/mobiles/worldwide-data-pricing/)

You can read test methodology here: [https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.cable.co.uk/mobile...](https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.cable.co.uk/mobile-data-cost/global-broadband-
pricing-study-2020-methodology.pdf)

------
BrandoElFollito
France is 3-4x cheaper than reported (0.25 EUR/Gb for Bouygues for instance)

Plus illimited calls, sms, mms. Beyond 30 Gbps you are illimited, but with a
lower speed (not sure which, probably EDGE)

------
fxleach
Yay Canada...

------
voisin
What is the x-axis?

------
nicc
This seems to be grossly miscalculated--at least for Italy.

No idea how these prices are calculated, but when I was still in Italy, I paid
$15/mo. and only had 2GB. In contrast, here in Poland I pay $6/mo. and I get
20GB.

Also, I've never seen an infographic as confusing as this one.

Extremely bad job all around.

~~~
swatkat
Original study is from here: [https://www.cable.co.uk/mobiles/worldwide-data-
pricing/](https://www.cable.co.uk/mobiles/worldwide-data-pricing/)

You can read test methodology here: [https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.cable.co.uk/mobile...](https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.cable.co.uk/mobile-data-cost/global-broadband-
pricing-study-2020-methodology.pdf)

~~~
ytch
It says:

1\. Packages were recorded up to a maximum of 60 per country – records beyond
this number have negligible impact on the average

2\. Averages are calculated as the MEDIAN of all recorded package prices/data
limits

But It doesn't mean most citizen will use median plan, I believe everyone will
tend to use cheapest plan. Is average number really meaningful?

