Internet pricing is so broken in America. I went from $80/mo for 100Mbps down to $40/mo for 200Mbps by just moving to the other side of town. It’s insane the price fluctuations. I can’t wait for...
Internet pricing is so broken in America. I went from $80/mo for 100Mbps down to $40/mo for 200Mbps by just moving to the other side of town. It’s insane the price fluctuations. I can’t wait for my municipal ISP to roll out to our street and never have to deal with commercial ISPs again.
I've lived in a few European countries and recently narrowly escaped having to move to Germany or Belgium - 14th and 11th on that list! I have family in rural UK (24th) (population of their...
I've lived in a few European countries and recently narrowly escaped having to move to Germany or Belgium - 14th and 11th on that list!
I have family in rural UK (24th) (population of their village is roughly 1,000) and they have an incredible FTTH connection now thanks to a non-profit community society called (B4RN)[https://b4rn.org.uk/] and they pay £33/month, which is apparently slightly above average, but the service is incredible. I'm very jealous of the speeds they get with the knowledge that they're not lining (too many) fatcats' pockets. I don't know if your municipal ISP would be similar, but having seen the success of B4RN, I'm all for projects like it in future.
You mention moving from 100 Mbps to 200 Mbps, which are still really good speeds (I don't have children, my standards might not be yours) but I get 500 Mbps (symmetrical!) for €23/month and could get 1 Gbps symmetrical for around €30. It just makes things so much more fluid. Sure, I can still watch my videos etc. etc. on less, of course I can. I'd be fine down to around 100 Mpbs, I reckon, but it's nice to be able to download a game in time measured in minutes or hours, rather than days, without ruining my partner's internet by hogging it all.
Edit: I got sidetracked and didn't actually respond to Beowulf's comment as I had intended.
Interesting, but we probably also need to see these figures relative to how much people earn in the countries. For example, $32 in the Philippines versus $30 in Italy really stands out.
Interesting, but we probably also need to see these figures relative to how much people earn in the countries. For example, $32 in the Philippines versus $30 in Italy really stands out.
When I ran the numbers a few years ago (broadband spend as % of household discretionary income) US was basically middle of the pack. It's probably even marginally improved since US income per...
When I ran the numbers a few years ago (broadband spend as % of household discretionary income) US was basically middle of the pack. It's probably even marginally improved since US income per capita has been growing faster than elsewhere.
I'd love to see where we fall in federal and state subsidies of ISPs though. Back in June, The Biden Administration announced $40+ billion to expand accessibility and reliability of domestic...
Definitely high but it's arguably strategic. The state is essentially footing the bill (in the IRA I think) to provide broadband all across the country - even where it's economically irrational to...
Definitely high but it's arguably strategic. The state is essentially footing the bill (in the IRA I think) to provide broadband all across the country - even where it's economically irrational to do so (anedotally I've heard some areas of Alaska are $200k per home to connect).
Europe isn't really a fair comparison since the population density is much higher. Average wages are also much lower so you need to adjust for that. And the broadband speeds are generally low - high competition / low return industry means there's no incentive to invest and improve. Pick your poison.
In the North-East US I am paying $90/month to have 1 gbps download, and maybe 35 mbps upload. It’s horrible pricing for what I get. I wouldn’t mind the prices if it was 1 gbps up/down honestly,...
In the North-East US I am paying $90/month to have 1 gbps download, and maybe 35 mbps upload. It’s horrible pricing for what I get. I wouldn’t mind the prices if it was 1 gbps up/down honestly, but seeing the other prices around the world makes me jealous! I truly wish more competition would appear in my area since Xfinity (Comcast) has a strong hold on the market. Only having one viable company is horrible when choosing an ISP, and sadly it is like this for a lot of the US. The only other options for me are 5G at home internet (my house has horrible cellular reception and since I play online games I cant afford the latency) and satellite.
Competition is not really a good solution to this problem. Do you really want to add more wires on poles? Utilities are a natural monopoly, like roads, and should really be built and maintained by...
Competition is not really a good solution to this problem. Do you really want to add more wires on poles? Utilities are a natural monopoly, like roads, and should really be built and maintained by and for the public.
I don’t know what happened to broadband over electric wires, but that sure seems like an awesome solution when coupled with robust regulation.
I do wish that more regulation of these providers was a thing. It really shows how little these companies have to worry about, when Comcast has been able to implement data caps on internet usage....
I do wish that more regulation of these providers was a thing. It really shows how little these companies have to worry about, when Comcast has been able to implement data caps on internet usage. That doesn’t affect me currently due to location, but it is still something that should not be allowed. And I am sure that problem is just a drop in the bucket for everything else they get away with.
I agree that more lines on poles isn’t a good thing, but I do still believe that areas in the country only having 1 option for high speed internet is an issue.
I know Verizon is just as bad as Comcast, but between the two, at least Verizon offers better upload speeds.
If a local ISP was able to start and gain traction, and offered decent speeds, I would switch to them in a heartbeat. Sadly, that doesn’t exist right now where I am.
Broadband over electrical lines is a nonstarter. It’s highly interference-prone, has limited bandwidth, and in general is not a scalable solution. Some utilities make use of it for relaying things...
Broadband over electrical lines is a nonstarter. It’s highly interference-prone, has limited bandwidth, and in general is not a scalable solution. Some utilities make use of it for relaying things like smart meter data, which is a good application as it’s redundant data that is somewhat fault tolerant. For average consumer use though, it would not be a pleasant experience.
The US really need to regulate ISPs and cell carriers. Was stuck with Comcast at about $70/mo for like 100/30 mbps until muncipal fiber rolled out. From the city I now get 1/1 gbps for the same...
The US really need to regulate ISPs and cell carriers. Was stuck with Comcast at about $70/mo for like 100/30 mbps until muncipal fiber rolled out. From the city I now get 1/1 gbps for the same price. And I'd contest that it's still too expensive.
Cell is even worst. I live in a moderate/large town in Colorado, every carrier suffers from dead zones. I've found Verizon to have the best coverage but I barely have service at home or my office. We struggle with NIMBYs and constructing cell towers but the coverage maps are a lie.
Others have mentioned adjusting for income; in addition, just saying it's more than 60mbps leaves room for massive disparities too. What are most people getting? 60mbps? 100? 1000? 10000? That...
Others have mentioned adjusting for income; in addition, just saying it's more than 60mbps leaves room for massive disparities too. What are most people getting? 60mbps? 100? 1000? 10000? That makes a big difference.
I'm in Portugal and I'm paying €40/month . I get 1gbps/200mbps for that. I've had 1gbps for a decade. There has been a lot of stagnation in the market during this time but the arrival of romanian ISP Digi is expected to shake things up.
Also, ADSL can't be compared with fiber. ADSL can be very unstable and is vulnerable to noise and distance related issues.
In Czech Republic in a village "on the end of the world" I have ~30/15Mbps down/up for ~15€ a month. Friends who are lucky to be on the right address in big town have 1/1Gbit down/up for 12€ a...
In Czech Republic in a village "on the end of the world" I have ~30/15Mbps down/up for ~15€ a month. Friends who are lucky to be on the right address in big town have 1/1Gbit down/up for 12€ a month. Prices here tend to be in the range of 10-40€ a month depending on provider, location and speed. You could probably go cheaper and you can certainly go more expensive.
In Bangladesh, the vast majority of people pay around BDT 500 so around USD $5. The graph shows $18. That's not to say the service is stellar, but definitely acceptable given the state of things....
In Bangladesh, the vast majority of people pay around BDT 500 so around USD $5. The graph shows $18. That's not to say the service is stellar, but definitely acceptable given the state of things. Living in the capital, I pay around $14/month. Most ISPs around the country are splintered off of other larger ISPs, and these ISPs essentially act as landlords renting out bandwidth. The poorer people in the capital pay around $2/month and that gets them by. But Mobile Data is a different beast. Data is sold as marked-up packages with expiration dates. This might factor into the $18/month on the site.
Internet pricing is so broken in America. I went from $80/mo for 100Mbps down to $40/mo for 200Mbps by just moving to the other side of town. It’s insane the price fluctuations. I can’t wait for my municipal ISP to roll out to our street and never have to deal with commercial ISPs again.
I've lived in a few European countries and recently narrowly escaped having to move to Germany or Belgium - 14th and 11th on that list!
I have family in rural UK (24th) (population of their village is roughly 1,000) and they have an incredible FTTH connection now thanks to a non-profit community society called (B4RN)[https://b4rn.org.uk/] and they pay £33/month, which is apparently slightly above average, but the service is incredible. I'm very jealous of the speeds they get with the knowledge that they're not lining (too many) fatcats' pockets. I don't know if your municipal ISP would be similar, but having seen the success of B4RN, I'm all for projects like it in future.
You mention moving from 100 Mbps to 200 Mbps, which are still really good speeds (I don't have children, my standards might not be yours) but I get 500 Mbps (symmetrical!) for €23/month and could get 1 Gbps symmetrical for around €30. It just makes things so much more fluid. Sure, I can still watch my videos etc. etc. on less, of course I can. I'd be fine down to around 100 Mpbs, I reckon, but it's nice to be able to download a game in time measured in minutes or hours, rather than days, without ruining my partner's internet by hogging it all.
Edit: I got sidetracked and didn't actually respond to Beowulf's comment as I had intended.
Interesting, but we probably also need to see these figures relative to how much people earn in the countries. For example, $32 in the Philippines versus $30 in Italy really stands out.
When I ran the numbers a few years ago (broadband spend as % of household discretionary income) US was basically middle of the pack. It's probably even marginally improved since US income per capita has been growing faster than elsewhere.
I'd love to see where we fall in federal and state subsidies of ISPs though. Back in June, The Biden Administration announced $40+ billion to expand accessibility and reliability of domestic internet. We pay out the nose to continue to pay out the nose.
Definitely high but it's arguably strategic. The state is essentially footing the bill (in the IRA I think) to provide broadband all across the country - even where it's economically irrational to do so (anedotally I've heard some areas of Alaska are $200k per home to connect).
Europe isn't really a fair comparison since the population density is much higher. Average wages are also much lower so you need to adjust for that. And the broadband speeds are generally low - high competition / low return industry means there's no incentive to invest and improve. Pick your poison.
In the North-East US I am paying $90/month to have 1 gbps download, and maybe 35 mbps upload. It’s horrible pricing for what I get. I wouldn’t mind the prices if it was 1 gbps up/down honestly, but seeing the other prices around the world makes me jealous! I truly wish more competition would appear in my area since Xfinity (Comcast) has a strong hold on the market. Only having one viable company is horrible when choosing an ISP, and sadly it is like this for a lot of the US. The only other options for me are 5G at home internet (my house has horrible cellular reception and since I play online games I cant afford the latency) and satellite.
Competition is not really a good solution to this problem. Do you really want to add more wires on poles? Utilities are a natural monopoly, like roads, and should really be built and maintained by and for the public.
I don’t know what happened to broadband over electric wires, but that sure seems like an awesome solution when coupled with robust regulation.
I do wish that more regulation of these providers was a thing. It really shows how little these companies have to worry about, when Comcast has been able to implement data caps on internet usage. That doesn’t affect me currently due to location, but it is still something that should not be allowed. And I am sure that problem is just a drop in the bucket for everything else they get away with.
I agree that more lines on poles isn’t a good thing, but I do still believe that areas in the country only having 1 option for high speed internet is an issue.
I know Verizon is just as bad as Comcast, but between the two, at least Verizon offers better upload speeds.
If a local ISP was able to start and gain traction, and offered decent speeds, I would switch to them in a heartbeat. Sadly, that doesn’t exist right now where I am.
Broadband over electrical lines is a nonstarter. It’s highly interference-prone, has limited bandwidth, and in general is not a scalable solution. Some utilities make use of it for relaying things like smart meter data, which is a good application as it’s redundant data that is somewhat fault tolerant. For average consumer use though, it would not be a pleasant experience.
The US really need to regulate ISPs and cell carriers. Was stuck with Comcast at about $70/mo for like 100/30 mbps until muncipal fiber rolled out. From the city I now get 1/1 gbps for the same price. And I'd contest that it's still too expensive.
Cell is even worst. I live in a moderate/large town in Colorado, every carrier suffers from dead zones. I've found Verizon to have the best coverage but I barely have service at home or my office. We struggle with NIMBYs and constructing cell towers but the coverage maps are a lie.
Others have mentioned adjusting for income; in addition, just saying it's more than 60mbps leaves room for massive disparities too. What are most people getting? 60mbps? 100? 1000? 10000? That makes a big difference.
I'm in Portugal and I'm paying €40/month . I get 1gbps/200mbps for that. I've had 1gbps for a decade. There has been a lot of stagnation in the market during this time but the arrival of romanian ISP Digi is expected to shake things up.
Also, ADSL can't be compared with fiber. ADSL can be very unstable and is vulnerable to noise and distance related issues.
In Czech Republic in a village "on the end of the world" I have ~30/15Mbps down/up for ~15€ a month. Friends who are lucky to be on the right address in big town have 1/1Gbit down/up for 12€ a month. Prices here tend to be in the range of 10-40€ a month depending on provider, location and speed. You could probably go cheaper and you can certainly go more expensive.
In Bangladesh, the vast majority of people pay around BDT 500 so around USD $5. The graph shows $18. That's not to say the service is stellar, but definitely acceptable given the state of things. Living in the capital, I pay around $14/month. Most ISPs around the country are splintered off of other larger ISPs, and these ISPs essentially act as landlords renting out bandwidth. The poorer people in the capital pay around $2/month and that gets them by. But Mobile Data is a different beast. Data is sold as marked-up packages with expiration dates. This might factor into the $18/month on the site.
Just for the record, Puerto Rico is not a country separate from the US.