Slashdot Mirror
Comparing Internet Cafe Rates Worldwide
tcd004 writes "I recently began compiling the hourly rates from Internet cafes around the world into a map. The result reveals wildly different prices, even in countries with similar economic conditions and technological development. This often puts access out of reach for large populations in developing countries who live on less than $1 per day. It seems government policies and telecom deregulation (in countries like Nigeria) are often the strongest forces determining a cafe's hourly rates. If you want to do some of your own rate hunting, take a look at sites like Cybercafes.com."
What's interesting is that internet cafes in a number of the countries with low rates (Pakistan $0.60, Ghana $0.60, Indonesia $0.66, and Turkey $0.50) use government subsidies to keep their rates down. Ghana, in particular, has done this as they believe that increased exposure to the outside world will help encourage its citizens to become literate.
I can't believe South Korea was skipped in this survey. They have one of the highest rates of internet cafes of any country I've ever been too. And they're really cheap to boot.
I love their sliding scale. When it's dead, you can get an hour for like 1 euro. If it's packed and super busy, it's 5-10 euro and hour.
"This is you left and that's your left. This is your right and that's your right. You're gonna die!
That's an odd graph. Australia's rates show up as $7.50US an hour, that's over $10 AUS an hour.
I've never seen internet cafe rates that high here, the most I've paid is $5AUS an hour, and that was in a music store that also provided free coffee.
Over here in Oslo, I see lots of Internet cafés and they're almost always empty.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Just a quick response to many of the excellent points made in the comments so far:
1. "Hey, I was in X country and the price was cheaper/more expensive!"
Yes, prices vary dramatically across nearly every country. When we compiled this data we were seeking out numbers that best represented the most common price in a particular country. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, you can pay $15 U.S for access if you want, but you can also find places who offer it for $3. These numbers are in no way meant to accuraly represent every price of every internet cafe in every country.
2. What do the grey areas represent? Aren't there more countries with high poverty levels?
Grey countries were not included in this survey. Data may have existed for them, but this was originally published in print, and we had a limted amount of space. And yes, many, many other countries live on less than $1 per day. We simply picked a representative sampling.
3. Why do people who live on $1 per day need to worry about internet access?
Good question. First of all, don't literally think of "$1 per day" to mean just that. The point of this exercise was to show that Cafe prices don't often serve their local populations, due to the fact that they're too expensive. The $1 figure is simply an effective way to point out countries with large populations of people living in poverty.
Why do poor people need the internet? Well, often the internet is considered to be a great democratizing and equalizing force. The people who most need equalizing are people who live in poverty. If they can't afford to get on the internet, then how is it improving their lives? Maybe through indirect means?
In any case, our goal was simply to inspire people to ask questions like these. We seem to have been successful. Thanks for your comments!
Tcd004