US Wireless Data Prices Are Among the Most Expensive On Earth (vice.com) 107
A new study from Finnish research firm Rewheel has found that U.S. wireless consumers pay some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world. The mobile data market in the U.S. has the fifth most expensive price per gigabyte smartphone plans among developed nations, and was the most expensive for mobile data overall. Motherboard reports: While the report notes that mobile data prices have dropped 11 percent during the last six months in the States, U.S. mobile data pricing remained significantly higher than 41 countries in the European Union and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Normally, having four major wireless carriers helps boost competition, in turn lowering prices. But the Rewheel report was quick to note that the often stunted level of competition seen in U.S. wireless is more akin to countries where there's just three major players. Meanwhile, a monopoly over business data connectivity generally keeps consumer mobile prices high. According to the FCC's own data, 73 percent of the special access market (which feeds everything from ATMs to cellular towers) is controlled by one ISP. This varies depending on the market, but it's usually AT&T, Verizon, or CenturyLink. These high prices to connect to cellular towers then impact pricing for the end user and smaller competitors, those same competitors and consumer groups have long argued. Another area where prices were high: mobile hotspots. The report found that Verizon charges users $710 per month for its 100 gigabyte mobile hotspot plan. That same plan costs between $11 and $23 per month in several European countries.
Advertising vs Boost Mobile etc. Phone financing (Score:2)
I've always thought it interesting that most people pay twice as much as they need to, even on the exact same network. There are several low-cost carriers such as Boost Mobile, which I've been very happy with.
From what I've been able to gather, people pay $100/month instead of $30-$35 for two reasons - the "free" phone (that actually costs them $2,000) and advertising / brand recognition. Phone companies spend a ton on advertising because it works. People buy the most-advertised phone service brands, which
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I've always thought it interesting that most people pay twice as much as they need to, even on the exact same network. There are several low-cost carriers such as Boost Mobile, which I've been very happy with.
From what I've been able to gather, people pay $100/month instead of $30-$35 for two reasons - the "free" phone (that actually costs them $2,000) and advertising / brand recognition. Phone companies spend a ton on advertising because it works. People buy the most-advertised phone service brands, which results in them paying for advertising.
Because there is a difference often in features (ex. T-Mobile's worldwide free data roaming, or ATT wifi calling both are only on their postpaid plans) and quality & breadth of coverage compared to MVNOs (like Boost you mention). I've tried various ATT MVNOs, in my expeirence while the service "worked" it was definitely not as fast or as solid a connection compared to my ATT postpaid plans. Boost mobile is an MVNO of one of the lowest ranked cellular service coverage and speed company Sprint.
Most postpa
Re: Advertising vs Boost Mobile etc. Phone financ (Score:2)
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From what I've been able to gather, people pay $100/month instead of $30-$35 for two reasons
I'm outside the US, I pay under $10/month. On an unlocked, dual-SIM phone, so I can switch carriers with about two taps if my current one decides to up its prices. It's somewhat scary that what you quote as a cheap price would be premium pricing here, and we're not even that cheap a country to begin with.
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You seem to be entirely confused about so many things. Wow.
And coming in at number four... (Score:5, Informative)
How sad is it that we here in Canada look at the data plans available in the US and _wish_ we had it so good?
Honestly, North America needs to get its wireless act together.
Yaz
Re:And coming in at number four... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Quebec isn't bad; there's some extra competition here in the form of Videotron, so the various providers tend to offer sales more often. I'm currently paying $69/month for 8GB of data, and that's also paying off the iPhone 7 I got November 2017. I go back to the site every few weeks and check if the price has dropped or if they've upped the data. I'll switch plans if it saves me even $1 a month. My partner's plan dropped $5 at some point, and I jumped on that right away.
It's still expensive compared to Euro
Ma? Is that you, Ms. Bell? (Score:2)
Say, wasn't there some sort of big lawsuit a few years back where a big phone company got broken up because they were too big and uncompetative?
And the other rankings are (Score:1)
1 - Country ...
2 - Country
3 - Korea
4 - Canada
5 - United States
6 - Country
7 - Country
8 - Country
What kind of study is this?
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I looked at the original published report and only one of the three bar graphs had not been "countryfied" - the one labeled "How many 4G gigabytes €30 buys". The worst ones were:
Greece
Hungary
Canada
Malta
Cyprus
Norway
Portugal
Japan
Belgium
United States
New Zealand
Luxembourg
Iceland
Turkey
After that volumes were already 3 x the US value.
Their claim was that lack of real competition was keeping prices high and that the situation was going to deteriorate if a proposed merger came about. The data was from Octobe
Data pricing (Score:5, Funny)
But our data must better than Europe's, it cost more!!!
Re: Data pricing (Score:2)
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Re: Market is working (Score:2)
But they do not, and it is not.
Ajit is just helping us all out (Score:2)
Re: Fake news (Score:2)
Maybe he's a dwarf. On Discworld, dwarves think irony means made of iron.
Still better off than Japan (Score:1)
With the monopoly that Docomo+KDDI/Au+Softbank have here, we're even beating the US.
it could be worse (Score:2)
Speaking as someone posting from a vessel just off the coast of Cambodia I'd love to get US levels of net access at the price paid anywhere in the US.
Sigh.
Re: it could be worse (Score:2)
You really wouldn't. Can you imagine a Cambodian Comcast or Verizon with server rooms providing data to their police?
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Why not. No worse than the US police getting to see what I'm up to in January when I'm there.
Lets face it, the Cambodian police are less likely to shoot me.
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Well, there is that.
Re: Yeah, so? (Score:1)
Donâ(TM)t really give a shit. I own 2 cars and a motorcycle.
Re: Yeah, so? (Score:2)
I drive them.
Re: Yeah, so? (Score:2)
You have neglected the possibility that both of my children are currently under 3 years old - which is in fact the case.
Also the fact that I have a fairly flexible schedule, specifically BECAUSE I have a good job.
But keep trolling, maybe you will get it right eventually.
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Re: Yeah, so? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, not so good.
The extra added on to petrol in Britain simply gets paid by the US driver by other means. And by having more people collecting the money by more methods, you pay a higher premium.
Your distances are about twenty times greater, and your vehicles maybe twice as heavy, so you end up using fourty times the fuel for the same tasks.
So you pay far more and pay far more often, all you do is pay less at a time.
And you fell for it.
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Your analysis is insane. Our vehicles are heavier, but not twice as heavy. Cars have bulked up across the board in the last couple of decades due to amenities and safety equipment.
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Your analysis is insane. Our vehicles are heavier, but not twice as heavy. Cars have bulked up across the board in the last couple of decades due to amenities and safety equipment.
In addition, the miles driven on average are not that different, the US drives about 50% more miles on average at about 1/2 the cost of fuel; so the same vehicle would be cheaper to operate in the US than the UK. That does not account for any differences in annual registration costs or other fees such as congestion charges, etc.
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Actually, not so good.
The extra added on to petrol in Britain simply gets paid by the US driver by other means. And by having more people collecting the money by more methods, you pay a higher premium.
Your distances are about twenty times greater, and your vehicles maybe twice as heavy, so you end up using fourty times the fuel for the same tasks.
So you pay far more and pay far more often, all you do is pay less at a time.
And you fell for it.
Not realy. If you look at average milage per year, the US is about 12K, EU 10K and UK 8K based on the latest numbers I could find. If you assume UK/EU fuel prices are 2X vs the US, the EU and UK pay more per mile driven in fuel costs than the US; even though you drive less.
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Actually, not so good.
The extra added on to petrol in Britain simply gets paid by the US driver by other means. And by having more people collecting the money by more methods, you pay a higher premium.
Your distances are about twenty times greater, and your vehicles maybe twice as heavy, so you end up using fourty times the fuel for the same tasks.
So you pay far more and pay far more often, all you do is pay less at a time.
And you fell for it.
After I said: "Not realy.[sic] If you look at average milage per year, the US is about 12K, EU 10K and UK 8K based on the latest numbers I could find. If you assume UK/EU fuel prices are 2X vs the US, the EU and UK pay more per mile driven in fuel costs than the US; even though you drive less.
I should have added "for a vehicle that gets the same gas milage." You can get a fuel efficient vehicle or a gas hog; depending on you choice; either would be more expensive to drive in the UK or EU.
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A typical English car gets 45mpg, that's best of the best in the US. A humvee gets 12, downhill.
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A typical English car gets 45mpg, that's best of the best in the US. A humvee gets 12, downhill.
True, since most people in the US don't drive the tiny sub compacts; even so at 2X gas prices a US car would nead to average 22.5 MPG, with the latest average at 24 per DOT, making the costs about the same on a per mile basis or a bit cheaper in the US. Even long wheel base light duty vehicles (some cars, trucks, vans, etc.) hit 17. New light trucks hit 27 and cars 37. If you compare similar vehicles the UK's fuel costs are signifiantly higher. Even if you look at cost for total miles driven the US only pay
Re:Yeah, so? (Score:5, Insightful)
The defense of all monopolies and oligopolies. 'It's not that we really want to charge as much as humanly possible for this thing because we know people want it and have nowhere else to go, it's just that it's really really expensive you see..."
Large parts of the US have no competition on the mobile networking side of things, which basically allows the companies to dictate the price. This is basic economics. It's right there in the summary:
Meanwhile, while we're a relatively small and a sparsely populated country here in Finland, we've got 2 major telecoms that have 4G coverage of most of the country. And whaddayaknow, once some competition appears, suddenly it turns out that data is not so expensive after all. My current plan has unlimited text messages, unlimited domestic call, unlimited (actually unlimited, no datacap) 5G (in theory, in practice the network is still 4G, we're in early phases of 5G infrastructure building) data in the Nordics + 15 gigs of outside the Nordics EU roaming data at at 30 euros a month.
The real question is, how's your infrastructure doing? 'Cause last I checked, according to american engineers, it's pretty dismal. [infrastruc...rtcard.org] See, the reason gas is expensive here is that we tax the shit out of it (75 % of the price of gas is tax here), which we then use to you know, actually maintain the road and bridge infrastructure. Moreover, gas being more expensive reduces the incentive of people to drive and actually has lead to fast development of public transit. I own a car, but it's actually faster for me to use public transportation to get from my front door to my main office because turns out the subway bypasses traffic jams, and it saves me money; for less than the price of refueling my car full once, I get one months unlimited use of Helsinki's puvlic transit network consisting of buses, a couple metro lines, a tram system, ferries and trains.
In the mid-to-long term, I'm actually all for gradually increasing the gas tax even more to drive people away from using it and to adopt modes of transit less destructive to the planetary ecosystem, because I really like breathing air and would like my potential kids and grandkids to be able to do it as well.
But yay for cheap gas! Never mind tomorrow or actual long-term planning like intelligent tool using apes that have an understanding of their own resource use and its impact on societies and the planet overall. Let the planet burn, as long as there's cheap gas for everyone amirite? Or maybe, just maybe we could for once take a hint from people with a long running relationship with the environment who understand that we're not outside the system but a part of it and we can't just keep exploiting it because we like fast cars and insanely inefficient combustion engines?
-Alanis Obomsawin, a member of Abenaki tribe from Canada, talking to author Ted Poole, from the book “Who is the Chairman of This Meeting?” (published in 1972)
it's just like healthcare... (Score:1)
we pay more than anyone else in the world and yet we have a life expectancy 10 years shorter than Spain.
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It's because Spaniards take siesta, eat tapas, and drink wine more than anyone else in the EU.
Comment removed (Score:3)
We pay about $120/month (Score:2)
For two lines and 16gb of data...which we (meaning my wife) routinely use up and then go into âoesafety modeâ.
But when in Mexico and Canada, we pay nothing extra, which is nice (we were in both within a month this year). Plus, no extra charge for tethering.
Our phones are paid for, we could jump carriers. I just do not bother. Not motivated to bother looking for savings. But on the upside, we do not pay for TV, Netflix, Hulu, or whatever else, so if you look at our TOTAL telecom expense every month
Still cheaper in the US (Score:2)
It's still cheaper in the US than on Mars. :)
There the bandwidth is metered in bits/s, and it's extremely expensive.
Way to go, USA
Re: Still cheaper in the US (Score:2)
Difference is, nobody on Mars is opposed to metropolitan networks being installed. Lovely hundred gigabit networks. The sort you could have to the home, but can't because Verizon and Comcast got competition banned.
I do so love the idea of hundred gigabit networks, and I live in a country where that would be legal.
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Put the blame where it belongs (Score:2)
They present all the ways that they will feather the Government's nest with either tax revenue, jobs (to build the infrastructure) or bribes or a combination therein.
The problem is that no one represents the consumer - least of all the (sometimes) elected official.
If we want this situation to change, we have to do as much pounding on the door
Are you serious, Verizon? (Score:2)
Roaming in EU (Score:2)
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I recently spent a month in the UK, and for that subscribed to GiffGaff (https://www.giffgaff.com/). For 20 UKP (a discount from 25 because I was referred by a friend) I got "unlimited" data, text and calling in the EU. In reality, that's 20 gigs unrestricted data, then it's throttled. With no WiFi where I was staying, I tethered a laptop and tablet. I ended up using about 15 gigs of data, including a trip over to Belgium, where everything still worked.
As a Canadian, these are excellent prices, but I'm sure
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Money for access (Score:2)
There is no surprise here. It costs money to have unfettered access to everyone's personal communications. The NSA and other three-letter-agencies are the reason wireless carriers can rape the population's wallets so thoroughly. Usually, when you see a situation like this, it is regulatory capture, but "capture" is not needed in this instance.
Not sure how telling this chart is.. (Score:2)