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US Wireless Data Prices Are Among the Most Expensive On Earth (vice.com)
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.
5 - 4 : Bribery is now legal and anonymous.
Enjoy the end of your democracy.
This is because our great nation isnâ(TM)t run by a bunch of Communist Snowflakes like Hillary Roddom Clinton.
My Obamaphone has free data. Thanks to all of you for paying for me.
Call me when yourr Canadian and getting raped.
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.
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
You so free. BIGLY free.
Can we please get back to the important questions like how us regular Joes can access the so called Industry Child Porn Database? The public has a right to be able to check their image library for offending pictures of hot 15 year old boys getting parked by old men in Catholic Priest outfits.
Shut up antifag apologist.
1 - Country ...
2 - Country
3 - Korea
4 - Canada
5 - United States
6 - Country
7 - Country
8 - Country
What kind of study is this?
Still leaps and bounds better than Canada.
It is just a bunch of hashes, and a more advanced Microsoft Research system that can recognize images from a distilled ("visual hash") dataset. So rest easy, regular Joe.
But our data must better than Europe's, it cost more!!!
The market in the US is working pretty good. Where else do you see people camping out and paying more that $500-$1000 for a phone.There is plenty of competition in the wireless markets.
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 postpaid are cheaper than $100 for service nowadays. I suspect anyone still paying $100+ for just service is likely using an ancient plan they don't want to give up. Even the most expensive cell carrier Verizon is cheaper than $100/line nowadays.
No shit Batman - did these people just get off the boat, or wade across the border (south) or walk across the border (north)?
Agreed. I pay $45 for 8GB on Cricket. Do I need 8GB? No. But the plan is legacy and still honored as grandfathered so I hesitate to drop it. If I want to save $10 I can drop it to $35 for 5GB. Still a killer deal. Also, thereâ(TM)s never overage charges. Instead they throttle to 128kbps if you exceed your cap (though admittedly this is slow). The plans are so cheap though that you can pay $50 for what others pay $100 for under name brand carriers.
While e have a "former" Verizon employee as head of the FCC. I put former in quotes because I'm pretty damn sure he's still on their bankroll.
> it was definitely not as fast or as solid a connection
I've come up with one or two reasons for this. First, they may be using their own proxy servers to handle data. They may only have one or two and that limits overall throughput or more latency due to distance.
The second may be that they are paying for lower priority traffic.
Said one Giant-Telecom vendor CEO to another. Turning a cellphone into a huge money making machine, rather than a public service. Absolute power doesn't have to be broad. it can be very focused and still be as regrettable in hindsight.
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
I am both really happy and really sad I live in 'Country'...
Its astronomically expensive to get wireless data on the moon or on the Mars. Pun intended.
PS: Which explains why nobody lives there, on a side note.
All the commercials i see tell me that our internet providers are doing a great job of providing me with internet. They are also helping fight forest fires in california and providing free puppies to disabled veterans, and defending the world from fascism.
That is what the television tells me. If you are saying television is lying, then you are speakiepng heresy. I spend 6 hours a day in front of the television recieiving my education on which group of fellow citizens i should hate and which groups and ideas as silly or evil.
Television is the central alter around wich the nation coalesces. If you keep disrespecting television then we will have to start censoring stories such as this and put you in the same bucket as alex jones or lynden larouche.
Thank God for my internet service providers that do such a good job of connecting me to the world. Thank god for television.
With the monopoly that Docomo+KDDI/Au+Softbank have here, we're even beating the US.
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.
Data is expensive. OK?
How are we doing on gasoline price, against the same group of countries?
we pay more than anyone else in the world and yet we have a life expectancy 10 years shorter than Spain.
Yay! A smattering of gay poisoning of the well by douchebag Ruskie trolls.
*Laughs in Canadian*
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
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.
Worldwide "free" roaming? I mean, you could just buy a SIM card at the airport and enjoy the cheap foreign proces prices/GB.
But also I have free roaming in quite a few countries on my Swedish SIM (including USA) for $10/month unlimited GB (max 5GB roaming whichi never reach domestically).
I'm still laughing my arse off.
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, we probably come out OK.
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
aaaaaaa
Free Mobile in france allows 25 GB roaming in the USA , and 100 GB in france for 19.00 a month and no bullshit limits on hotspot usage. American mobile data pricing is insane.
I'm in Italy, and I pay 5â (way less than $10) for 10GB, data-only (but I can get some minutes or even unlimited calls for 10 to 15â depending on the carrier). Newer plans are better than that. My carrier is actually one of the cheapest, but is not MVNO (MVNOs do exist and may offer slightly better deals). That means your $35-45 plan is still 3 to 5 times higher than we are used to! About that $710 plan...wow. I mean...wow. Just to note, here carriers are *required* to allow mobile hotspot in any plan they offer, without a price increase!
That is not a killer deal relative to EUROPEAN pricing ......
Its almost like providers are deliberately trying not to compete or let other player into the markets that might drive prices down. Perhaps someone should investigate that...
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?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
There are a number of problems in the US that results in high costs of telecommunication services. A lot of it boils down to socialist policies, but distances also are an issue.
So for example Europeans frequently live in high density (by US standards) city areas and all of Europe is much closer whereas the US is spread out. This means there is a higher cost to provide service.
The other problem depending on what we are talking about is socialism. Landline internet access for which cellular towers connect are a monopoly. This socialist policy is the result of city governments giving cable companies monopolies in the 1980s with "regulations" on prices they could set that were then lifted in the 19980s. That gave them an entrenched monopoly regardless of if its a legal monopoly today. You can't compete as an entrent to a market if you have to charge more than your competition because your competition can undercut you on price because they've already paid off the loans.
Europe went a different way and at least for now mostly requires there be two parts. One is the physical line provider and the other is the ISP. This limited amount of competiton has helped, but there are also subsidies. What you actually pay is likely a lot higher than percieved because you are paying for service via taxes that you may not even be aware of. Socialism exists everywhere- but it's more so in some places than others. Even the so called "libertarian" states frequently are just disguises for socialism. Hong Hong for instance has a government that owns all the land and leases it out via 50 year contracts which are bid up via private entities. It accounts for 1/3 of the governments revenue. This results in people paying taxes through sky high rents rather than directly through income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and similar.
The only hope I have to rid us of socialism is through an actual principled libertarian migration movement. 20,000 people are in the process of and many already have moved to New Hampshire. A lot has been accomplished already- but there is still a long ways to go. I don't anticipate a freedom-respecting state to exist any time soon- but give it 20-50 years and there might be a chance. I'm just glad to see that there is already a bit of progress being made. The migration has already succeeded and there are already 20 or so reps in the house and that has already had an impact in what laws are getting passed. Crypto currency businesses for instance have been protected from regulation through a law that prohibits the banking department from regulating it (which is how it would be regulated otherwise and theoretically could have been for a short while had the issue not been fixed fast enough).
I find that coming to slashdot is the easiest and cheapest way to read utter codswallop and tripe.
Libertarianism wants to privatize profits and socialize negative externalities. We can do better.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
My dad lives in Canada and for about 5 years he was paying Telus $350 a month for his cellular bill and he barely uses it. There were no overages or anything, he just had a bunch of addons tacked on that were ridiculous. When I asked him about it he said he doesn't know either but it's too hard to get them to do anything about it over the phone so he gave up trying.
Things like this are why Canada has the most overpriced cellular services in the world.
Thanks to Reliance Jio 4G, you can have 60 GB of high speed data for 28 days at around 2 USD.
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 as the Telcos and make our elected officials understand that we are not sheep to be led and taken advantage of.
*** Don't be dull.***
Since it was necessary to specify "Earth" they must have data on other planets. I would like to see that data.
In Denmark $19.80 gets me 1TB a month on 4G. I use it as my only connection and hotspot at home. At it's very best it can touch 25Mbit.
What happens when you remove competition from the market place and scratch the backs of politicians who return the favor?
This. Non competitive false capitalism.
$710/mo for 100 GB and up to 12 Mbps? You are a bunch of crooks.
Has the EU eliminated roaming charges when you are outside of your home market? Are the EU plans unlimited data? The article doesn't reall go into much detail on how the plans compare beyond pricing.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
....its getting ripped off by large corps.
Also, they charge you $20 to cancel an account which is a scam. There is also a charge to downgrade to to their free service. They entice you buy a second SIM for $0.01, hiding the fact that they will be charging you later for this downgrade or cancellation.
Could it be that India is also one of the most densely populated places on Earth while America is one of the least?
That's capitalism for you
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.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
It's called Capitalism, and it's what this country is all about, so stop whining.
The US is a good deal below Korea and Canada. The EU countries are not broken up into separate regions other than France and Italy so... I'm not sure if poorer nations are driving down the cost of the single EU28 region. Is this one price for all countries in that region?
Surely free market capitalism will fix this like it has everything else here in the US!
You seem to be entirely confused about so many things. Wow.