Broadband pricing study shows vast disparity worldwide

[HEXUS]

Monthly pricing ranges from just US$5pm in Iran, to US$955pm in Burkina Faso.

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[Dashers]

I feel this is more a report on cost-of-living in various countries. How do these prices compare with average incomes? Things are reasonably expensive in the UK because running costs of staff is also reasonably high.

[aidanjt]

127 place for Ireland. :/

It's not wrong, the government here has done little to nothing to reign in the ISPs.

[LSG501]

Report doesn't really say what sort of speed/service they get in those countries either, while the UK is woefully behind where it should be in terms of infrastructure etc, I would like to think it's ahead of places like Syria in terms of what they get for their money.

Mind you that's not to say I don't think our prices are a too expensive for what we actually get.

[Irien]

I'd be very skeptical of these kinds of reports. It's not clear whether they're talking about ADSL or Fibre services (ie. what speeds they are comparing) or whether it is weighted by userbase (eg. if I offer broadband for 300ukp per month and noone buys it, does it still weigh the average?)... In the UK, does it include things like Line Rental, which would be necessary for a land line anyway (but not for mobile..). Indeed, where does mobile broadband fit in?

Either way, suggesting that the average UK consumer pays 35ukp per month for broadband seems pretty high, when the major players offer it from anywhere between free and 25ukp.

[Troopa]

I would also say there is a massive disparity between what people are paying in the UK for the exactly the same service as your neighbour for exactly the same service. It seems as though unless you are willing to annually call your ISP to complain and threaten to leave, that you are simply price-rised year on year.

[TeePee]

'Broadband has been defined by the FCC as 25Mbit/s (although no indication if that's the definition used in the study). That's faster than most people in the US have access to, but a joke compared to Europe. You'll note just how poorly the US fairs in this study, almost twice as expensive as the UK. The state of Internet service here is a result of political corruption, and it's set to get worse.

[DaMoot]

I'm glad to be in the US where broadband is wide-spread and cheap. Paying $40/mo for 300/300 fibre, no caps, filters, monitoring or contracts.

[TeePee]

I'm glad to be in the US where broadband is wide-spread and cheap. Paying $40/mo for 300/300 fibre, no caps, filters, monitoring or contracts.

Where is that? Sounds unlikely.

[Mngereso]

51st place for Kenya, not bad at all, there's great competition and our ISP's are really delivering in my opinion.

[Axle_Grease]

I'm getting a far better deal paying $97(USD) inc 15% tax in New Zealand for 900Mbps than I would in Iran paying $5.37(USD) for 1.6Mbps.

[GrahamC]

It's the line rental that twists the value of the UK internet price. Also for me the focus on download speed hides the 'handbrake' effect slow upload speed has for content creation or cloud storage usage.

Overall though UK internet is pretty good and priced at an effective speed/price/range level.

[cheesemp]

Wow $40 (~£30) for the UK. Either a lot of people are over paying a lot or this doesn't take into account discounts? I rarely pay more than £15 using cashback, new customer discounts and shopping vouchers and that's for unlimited 40Mb fibre...

[ET3D]

Where do I see the speeds in that report? Price should take into account speed.

[DanceswithUnix]

Wow $40 (~£30) for the UK. Either a lot of people are over paying a lot or this doesn't take into account discounts? I rarely pay more than £15 using cashback, new customer discounts and shopping vouchers and that's for unlimited 40Mb fibre...

Wanting static IP, no filtering or shaping, no contention problems and competent support staff tends to push the price up. Having to bundle in calls and line rental muddies the actual amount I am paying but it is certainly a bit more than mentioned here.

[LSG501]

Also for me the focus on download speed hides the 'handbrake' effect slow upload speed has for content creation or cloud storage usage.

Yeah this gets me as well, that and stupidly small allowances. BT's black friday deal for example is for 30GB usage a month, if that's all you're using why even bother with fibre in the first place.

When I was looking for fibre all the 'cheap' packages seemed to have just 2mbps upload which is only just faster than what my adsl had. While the argument that we download more than we upload is true to a point, you have to wonder if that's because those on 'basic' fibre get such a small upload speed.

Because I often need to upload stuff for my work I'm basically 'having' to pay for an 80mbps connection to get a 20mbps upload (I'd like faster ideally) but I don't really need 80mbps down, I could likely manage happily on 40mbps with my usage. If I go for the 38/50mbps packages it's usually just 10mbps upload but you only save about a fiver so it's a no brainer to have the higher package for me. I'd love to see a 40/40 package or something similar but odds of that happening is pretty slim.