US has the Most Expensive Mobile Data Plans in the World

[NeoNemesis]

You can get 'good' deals in Canada if you look for them. I pay $55 a month for 5GB with Freedom. My wife pays $60 a month for 10GB with Bell.

In Korea my brother in law pays ~40 a month for Unlimited data.

 

[BB Gun]

So expensive... what's wrong with $40 prepaid? Need the country to fight the overpriced battle, especially of phones. Who wants to pay $500-1000 for a damn cell phone?

Yeah, I flubbed that, that includes about 30 bucks a month for my son's phone and insurance plan, that he pays for. Wife and I just use off the shelf $200 Motorola g series phones.

So it's 190 for 3 lines, unimited data. So a little spendy, but not too bad.

 

[sobe88]

And where in Canada do you live?

AT&T located in Oklahoma, though state doesn't particularly matter much. AT&T's prepaid "unlimited" "plans" offer up to 22GB limit before throttling. Significant other and myself pay $100 exactly for 2 phones with unlimited text, talk, and "unlimited"(up to 22GB before throttling) data(AT&T Unlimited and More Premium plan). More simplistic plans can be had for far cheaper though through major resellers or prepaid options such as direct through Verizon offers a prepaid unl talk/text and 3GB for $35 USD. Total offers 5GB for $30.

Funny enough though AT&T tries to charge near $80 per line for the Unlimited and More Premium plan, but if you read the fine print you can get multi line for $100 flat if just two lines are needed.

 

[Basheron]

I wonder if that correlates to the cost of land mass coverage. It's a lot cheaper per person in densely populated areas.

 

[86 5.0L]

We also have the highest disposible income...

Of course things are more expensive here. Its where the money is at.

the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is USD 44 049 a year, much higher than the OECD average of USD 30 563 a year, and the highest figure in the OECD

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/

 

[chenw]

Taiwan here.

The normal basic price for unlimited mobile data plan in a major city is about US$17 a month (NT$499), with various promotions often undercutting this amount. I don't live in the country side, but generally the prices are not too different. This unlimited data plan is literally unlimited, though T/C states it's subject to fair use, a few ISP's told me they are not aware of anyone using it to the point of the ISP invoking Fair use.

My limited data plan is from a business account that my company uses so everyone in the company can call another free of charge, and also avail of using in company speed dial, on that plan, I pay 40c extra for 5GB a month, compared to what I would have paid monthly if I didn't use that plan (NT$199 vs NT$187), and the 5GB isn't hard capped either, they just slow it down to 128kbps once you reach that cap.

For reference, the price of a Big Mac Meal in Taiwan is about $6 off the top of my head.

EDIT: Some ISPs even offer flexible plans that charges you tiers based on the amount you use that month, you'd always be charged a minimum, but the surcharge would always stop at what you would need to pay if you were on unlimited.

 

[Jelly]

You gotta work pretty hard to find a spot that doesn't have cell service these days.

You've obviously never driven across Kansas...
There are dead spots everywhere, just gotta leave your big population centers to find them.

 

[Sycraft]

I wonder about the veracity of this. Reason being my parents live in Canada, and my sister lives in the UK and my plan destroys both of theirs. My sister pays less per month, but has a number of restrictions. My parents is about the same price (depends on what the exchange rate is) but has less data and shit roaming. I have T-Mobile One which is $70/month for unlimited data, call and text, or $60/month if I use less than 2GB (they just lower the monthly charge any month you use less). Not a bad price but what really pushes it over the top is that you can roam basically anywhere with it. Canada and Mexico are included for calls to/from and all that. Most of the rest of the world calls aren't included, but data and text are. So not the cheapest plan... but I get a hell of a big service area.

And for that matter, the plan would be cheaper, if I had a family, goes down to like $40/line if you have 4 people on it.

I just wonder about their methodology is all.

 

[STrooperTK421]

You still have to run millions of miles of fiber optic cables connecting all the metro areas.



Something little baby countries don't do.

Wait wait wait...Isn't that what we the taxpayers shelled out billions of dollars many years ago for the telecom industry to do and instead they fucking pocketed the money and used it to rebuild their monopolistic empire...