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Bandwidth costs are highly dependent on where you live and what you can pay for. In most of the developing world, people access internet through their phones pr
by sdenton4 10y ago
Bandwidth costs are highly dependent on where you live and what you can pay for. In most of the developing world, people access internet through their phones primarily, on prepaid plans costing about $5 per gigabyte, which can be a significant part of a monthly income.
- sleepyhead 10y agoWhere? In Cambodia 1.4gb costs $1.50. That's the cheapest I encountered but other developing countries in South East Asia isn't that much more expensive. Even Myanmar which has been on lockdown for decades and only recently got public sim cards is affordable for data. http://www.cellcard.com.kh/en/prepaid-plans/xg/ http://www.cellcard.com.kh/en/prepaid-plans/xg/
- sdenton4 10y agoKenya, for example, has 500Ksh for a GB, which comes to about $4.92, USD; this is comparable to rates I encountered elsewhere in SSA. Meanwhile, the less money you have, the more you pay! Smaller bundles cost more per GB, and many of the Kenyans I knew would regularly buy 150MB top-ups due to lack of upfront funds. On AirTel in India, it looks like they charge about $3.88 for a 1GB bundle good for 28 days (there's a cheaper 1GB bundle good for 1 day, however, and some other deals available). There are also a few articles floating around on the _increasing_ cost of data in India, suggesting that companies started with cheaper data while establishing themselves in the marketplace, and over time have been more obliged to turn a profit instead of burning investor money on subsidized plans. Cambodia does look pretty cheap, though, I agree.