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Well, Romania is known for cheap internet prices, but for reference, here the largest _private_ operator is offering 1Gbps for $9.33/mo, taxes included (19% VAT

Well, Romania is known for cheap internet prices, but for reference, here the largest _private_ operator is offering 1Gbps for $9.33/mo, taxes included (19% VAT). I kinda' doubt that $50/mo is really unsustainable, especially once the infrastructure is already built.

voltagex_ 7y ago
What's the actual bandwidth like? Where's the closest big exchange?
- virgilp 7y ago
  I don't have the 1Gbps connection, I took the cheaper 400Mbps one. But they're fairly good at actually offering the promised bandwidth. Again, internet is one of the very few top-notch things here, better than most of the world.
  - pkaye 7y ago
    What is the effective speed you can get because of bandwidth throttling done by remote servers? Can you get close to 400Mbps to cloud storage for example? Currently I have 150Mbps and been wondering if increasing it would be worth the extra cost.
    - fragmede 7y ago
      It really depends on the cloud storage provider, and once you have gigabit, you can tell who's being cheap with their CDN/local POP. Some downloads scream along and gigabit is worth it. It's ridiculous to me that local disk can be the bottleneck. (This is with a spinning disk. An SSD, less so.) Others downloads... don't.
ineedasername 7y ago
You can't really compare sticker prices here. US percapita GDP is about 6 times higher. The average salary is about 8 times higher. So as a proportion of those things, cost is fairly similar.
- virgilp 7y ago
  GDP doesn't matter here. Average salary might... presuming employees that maintain the system are paid average salary, AND the cost is overwhelmingly in the "salaries" category - which I sorta' doubt.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    GDP per capita is a proxy for local price level, and it absolutely matters. Running a fiber service is overwhelmingly a matter of labor costs. Everyone from employees who deal with permitting and approvals to guys who run the cable to network operators to customer support representatives. The stuff that’s made in China—the fiber and the equipment, is a small part of those costs.
    - rsj_hn 7y ago
      > GDP per capita is a proxy for local price level No, this is incorrect. GDP is a proxy for production in nominal terms. If it were just a proxy for local price level, then every place would have the same real income and would differ solely by relative prices. That the U.S. has a a GDP/capita that is 4x times some other nation does not mean that prices are 4x lower in the other nation.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        GDP is a measure of production in nominal terms. It’s a rough proxy for labor prices (the kind of price I was talking about). That’s because a dominant component of GDP is personal incomes.
        rsj_hn 7y ago
        It's a rough proxy of production. Even assuming constant labor shares and working hours (which are not all constant), wages are higher in A than in B because workers produce more per hour in A than they do in B, and then there is a relative price effect. But it's not all a relative price effect, it's not a proxy for the relative price effect, and for large multiples, productivity dominates relative price effects for most occupations. When you are asking "how much would it cost to do something in B than in A", workers in B might be paid 4x more than in A, but you may also need 1/4 of the workers to do the same job. So the issue isn't wages, it's output per unit work, primarily because of accumulated human and physical capital, as well as things like infrastructure, legal system, needing to pay bribes or efficiency wages, etc.

voltagex_ 7y ago

What's the actual bandwidth like? Where's the closest big exchange?

virgilp 7y ago
I don't have the 1Gbps connection, I took the cheaper 400Mbps one. But they're fairly good at actually offering the promised bandwidth. Again, internet is one of the very few top-notch things here, better than most of the world.
- pkaye 7y ago
  What is the effective speed you can get because of bandwidth throttling done by remote servers? Can you get close to 400Mbps to cloud storage for example? Currently I have 150Mbps and been wondering if increasing it would be worth the extra cost.
  - fragmede 7y ago
    It really depends on the cloud storage provider, and once you have gigabit, you can tell who's being cheap with their CDN/local POP. Some downloads scream along and gigabit is worth it. It's ridiculous to me that local disk can be the bottleneck. (This is with a spinning disk. An SSD, less so.) Others downloads... don't.

ineedasername 7y ago

You can't really compare sticker prices here. US percapita GDP is about 6 times higher. The average salary is about 8 times higher. So as a proportion of those things, cost is fairly similar.

virgilp 7y ago
GDP doesn't matter here. Average salary might... presuming employees that maintain the system are paid average salary, AND the cost is overwhelmingly in the "salaries" category - which I sorta' doubt.
- rayiner 7y ago
  GDP per capita is a proxy for local price level, and it absolutely matters. Running a fiber service is overwhelmingly a matter of labor costs. Everyone from employees who deal with permitting and approvals to guys who run the cable to network operators to customer support representatives. The stuff that’s made in China—the fiber and the equipment, is a small part of those costs.
  - rsj_hn 7y ago
    > GDP per capita is a proxy for local price level No, this is incorrect. GDP is a proxy for production in nominal terms. If it were just a proxy for local price level, then every place would have the same real income and would differ solely by relative prices. That the U.S. has a a GDP/capita that is 4x times some other nation does not mean that prices are 4x lower in the other nation.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      GDP is a measure of production in nominal terms. It’s a rough proxy for labor prices (the kind of price I was talking about). That’s because a dominant component of GDP is personal incomes.
      - rsj_hn 7y ago
        It's a rough proxy of production. Even assuming constant labor shares and working hours (which are not all constant), wages are higher in A than in B because workers produce more per hour in A than they do in B, and then there is a relative price effect. But it's not all a relative price effect, it's not a proxy for the relative price effect, and for large multiples, productivity dominates relative price effects for most occupations. When you are asking "how much would it cost to do something in B than in A", workers in B might be paid 4x more than in A, but you may also need 1/4 of the workers to do the same job. So the issue isn't wages, it's output per unit work, primarily because of accumulated human and physical capital, as well as things like infrastructure, legal system, needing to pay bribes or efficiency wages, etc.