7 ms·

I'm in a rural city in Thailand, fiber 2Gbps is $50 / mo. And this is just for normie. Like unimpressive.

downrightmike 4y ago
USA requires more raw materials to provide services. United States is about 19 times bigger than Thailand. Thailand is approximately 513,120 sq km, while United States is approximately 9,833,517 sq km, making United States 1,816% larger than Thailand. And then there is the duopoly of ISPs where they carve out huge chunks and agree not to compete.
- _Algernon_ 4y ago
  Sheer size isn't what you should compare. Population density is much more relevant. Granted, Thailand still comes out ahead, but by far less than your size comparison (33.6/km^2 vs 132/km^2)
- Existenceblinks 4y ago
  I know. It's several factors, density, history of infra of telecom companies etc.
- pirate787 4y ago
  I live in a metro area in the US and thousands of homes in my community do not have land-based broadband options. The US incumbents have totally failed and it isn't because there's a lot of desert in the West and Alaska. I'm sick of this argument which doesn't explain why city dwellers in most places in America have the worst internet in the developed world.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    I live in a not-very-metro area in the usa and get gigabit fiber for $65/mo.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    I'm in Jersey City and have fios, 1gbit for $70 a month
  - m0ngr31 4y ago
    I live in the middle of nowhere USA. I'm about 1,000 feet off the road (that only random farms are on, about 20 miles from the small city we're near). My local ISP trenched fiber to my house for free and provides gig internet for $80/month. The funny thing is my previous house was in town and I had to settle for 100Mbit for the same price. ISPs are all sorts of messed up.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      It’s all about what it costs to upgrade - if a rural ISP has to upgrade copper infrastructure for whatever reason they’ll fiber it. In the city it’s often just as easy to let what is working continue “working” - a major rollout takes a lot of money.
      - patmorgan23 4y ago
        Yep engineering the new network, pulling permits, hiring the contractor, buying new equipment/lines all cost $$$$$$
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Yup, I live in San Francisco proper, and my only choice is Comcast cable. Looks like the current promo pricing for 1200Mbps is around $70/mo, but I can't quickly find what the normal price is. And I assume the uplink is something abysmal like 25Mbps. (I'm on Comcast's Business service, $250/mo for 1000/35 [long dumb story why]. Most of the time I see under 600 down when checking on speed test sites, and real-world speeds downloading large files rarely exceeds 250. I expect real-world speeds on the non-business service are even worse.) It's pretty embarrassing that this is the state of things.
    - rpearl 4y ago
      Most of San Francisco can be served by Wave (cable). Sonic also has a large presence in San Francisco as well. Over in Oakland I am paying $40/mo to Sonic for 10Gbps (though I only have equipment to route at 1Gbps at the moment)
    - jasondclinton 4y ago
      I'm also in SF Bay Area and I just had 3 Gbps symmetric fiber installed by Comcast. This is their $299/mo "Gigabit Pro" option. I posted about it on Reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/comments/tkmv9y/update_gigabit_pro_is_apparently_unobtainium/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/comments/tkmv9y/upd... There's a benchmark posted there showing that the speed is really as advertised.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  Let's consider Gross National Product of each county adjusted for population size: gnpUSD = {'USA': 21,650,000,000,000, 'THA': 491,910,000,000} #4th quarter 2021 pop = {'USA': 329,000,000, 'THA': 70,000,000} #as of 2021 gnp['USA'] // pop['USA'] 65805 gnp['THA'] // pop['THA'] 7027 Seems more like a distribution of resources issue... so why not jack up taxes on the wealthiest 1% and use it to pay for things like high-speed fiber in all the rural areas? Doubtless this would lead to economic growth?
  - lazide 4y ago
    It isn’t a ‘tax the 1%’ issue, it’s a corruption and market capture issue in the US that we refuse to acknowledge. Throwing more money at it usually makes that kind of problem WORSE not better.
    - photochemsyn 4y ago
      FDR's Rural Electricity Cooperatives did a lot to electrify much of the midwest and rural south, along with the creation of the TVA. I doubt anyone would want to rely on the current major providers, Comcast etc., who have such a bad track record, to accomplish this. Municipal broadband sounds like a better option: > "The Rural Electrification Act of 1936, enacted on May 20, 1936, provided federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve isolated rural areas of the United States. The funding was channeled through cooperative electric power companies, hundreds of which still exist today. (wiki)"
      - rstat1 4y ago
        There are fair few places in the US where the local power company also owns a fiber network and provides (relatively speaking) super cheap gigabit or multi-gigabit internet service However there are just as many places where the state's government was bought off to ban such networks because the majors are afraid of actual competition.
      - lazide 4y ago
        Don’t forget the existing providers have already received massive funds to ‘improve rural broadband’ in the same vein as that act. Hundred of billions of dollars if I remember correctly. It’s mostly been ineffective.
vijucat 4y ago
But is that within the city / country, or to outside the country, too? International bandwidth can be completely mediocre compared to local bandwidth. What I do is change the Server in speedtest.net to one in New York / wherever I have business in and test it out (from Hong Kong).
- Existenceblinks 4y ago
  I work remotely with american friends for years, video meeting has always been smooth (I never test traceroute though)
barbacoa 4y ago
How affordable is $50 in rural Thailand compared to the USA?
- Existenceblinks 4y ago
  $50 is about 1 week of 3 meals consumption per day (lower middle class)
  - KMnO4 4y ago
    So a bit under $2.50/meal. That’s very comparable to lower/lower-middle in the USA.
    - Existenceblinks 4y ago
      In capital city, I'd say it's about $4-5/meal (including drink) in daily basis. For those who eat lots of things, $7/meal makes them full. --- footnote here: official income record of thai people/businesses does not really reflect reality. Lots of entities are kind of off-system.
      - wonderbore 4y ago
        Where do you spend 120 baht a meal? That's a restaurant meal, not the average meal. I don't spend more than 60 baht in Bangkok. At $7 (250 baht) you're talking about a night out (maybe except alcohol), way off of the "average meal".
        Existenceblinks 4y ago
        (including drink) .. if you eat rice something with water everyday, it's quite a tight lifestyle.
        wonderbore 4y ago
        I love the tightest lifestyle eating rice and 1-2 side dishes from street vendors who deserve the money rather than foreign investors to extract money from the economy like leeches.
geoka9 4y ago
I'm in a top 10 most expensive city in the world (Canada) and the best I can get for $50 is 80 Mbps (and even that is only available as a promotion that you can't get by simply going to the ISP's website and buying a plan).
- Matthias247 4y ago
  I'm in Vancouver and paying about 55 CAD plus taxes for 300Mbps. So it's possible to get a bit more for similar money. The downside of that is however those are not available as regular offers, and you constantly have to deal with ISPs and rention programs to keep the price down. Even had various events where the ISP randomly increased the price inside one month, until I gave them a call and ask to fix it again. This price randomness never occured to me in germany, and just booking a fixed low price on a website was so much more convenient.
- bpye 4y ago
  I'm in Vancouver, BC and paying 80$/mo for 1Gbps symmetric. I could get 2.5Gbps but it would be about twice the cost - and I would have to get something that can do 2.5G link speed on an SFP+, not many devices can.
- jagger27 4y ago
  I’m within 2km of Parliament and can’t get fibre. It’s disgusting.
- rubatuga 4y ago
  In Winnipeg, Canada, I get 500Mbps up/down for 75$.
- doublerabbit 4y ago
  $50 gets me 2Mb ADSL here in the city centre of Glasgow. Your lucky.
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
  Have you looked at smaller ISPs? I live in rural BC and I'm was able to get 80Mb for $35 using a no-name internet only provider with no contract. If I went with one of the big cable companies I would be paying at least double for the same thing
underlines 4y ago
I'm Swiss and had Init7. Moved to Thailand (BKK) in 2016 and was so disappointed by a very new condominium in the center, which didn't even allowed for FTTH lines. Real Estate Developers usually make contracts within their Condos, to force the whole building to use only one provider.

USA requires more raw materials to provide services. United States is about 19 times bigger than Thailand. Thailand is approximately 513,120 sq km, while United States is approximately 9,833,517 sq km, making United States 1,816% larger than Thailand. And then there is the duopoly of ISPs where they carve out huge chunks and agree not to compete.

_Algernon_ 4y ago
Sheer size isn't what you should compare. Population density is much more relevant. Granted, Thailand still comes out ahead, but by far less than your size comparison (33.6/km^2 vs 132/km^2)
Existenceblinks 4y ago
I know. It's several factors, density, history of infra of telecom companies etc.
pirate787 4y ago
I live in a metro area in the US and thousands of homes in my community do not have land-based broadband options. The US incumbents have totally failed and it isn't because there's a lot of desert in the West and Alaska. I'm sick of this argument which doesn't explain why city dwellers in most places in America have the worst internet in the developed world.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  I live in a not-very-metro area in the usa and get gigabit fiber for $65/mo.
- themitigating 4y ago
  I'm in Jersey City and have fios, 1gbit for $70 a month
- m0ngr31 4y ago
  I live in the middle of nowhere USA. I'm about 1,000 feet off the road (that only random farms are on, about 20 miles from the small city we're near). My local ISP trenched fiber to my house for free and provides gig internet for $80/month. The funny thing is my previous house was in town and I had to settle for 100Mbit for the same price. ISPs are all sorts of messed up.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    It’s all about what it costs to upgrade - if a rural ISP has to upgrade copper infrastructure for whatever reason they’ll fiber it. In the city it’s often just as easy to let what is working continue “working” - a major rollout takes a lot of money.
    - patmorgan23 4y ago
      Yep engineering the new network, pulling permits, hiring the contractor, buying new equipment/lines all cost $$$$$$
- kelnos 4y ago
  Yup, I live in San Francisco proper, and my only choice is Comcast cable. Looks like the current promo pricing for 1200Mbps is around $70/mo, but I can't quickly find what the normal price is. And I assume the uplink is something abysmal like 25Mbps. (I'm on Comcast's Business service, $250/mo for 1000/35 [long dumb story why]. Most of the time I see under 600 down when checking on speed test sites, and real-world speeds downloading large files rarely exceeds 250. I expect real-world speeds on the non-business service are even worse.) It's pretty embarrassing that this is the state of things.
  - rpearl 4y ago
    Most of San Francisco can be served by Wave (cable). Sonic also has a large presence in San Francisco as well. Over in Oakland I am paying $40/mo to Sonic for 10Gbps (though I only have equipment to route at 1Gbps at the moment)
  - jasondclinton 4y ago
    I'm also in SF Bay Area and I just had 3 Gbps symmetric fiber installed by Comcast. This is their $299/mo "Gigabit Pro" option. I posted about it on Reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/comments/tkmv9y/update_gigabit_pro_is_apparently_unobtainium/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/comments/tkmv9y/upd... There's a benchmark posted there showing that the speed is really as advertised.
photochemsyn 4y ago
Let's consider Gross National Product of each county adjusted for population size: gnpUSD = {'USA': 21,650,000,000,000, 'THA': 491,910,000,000} #4th quarter 2021 pop = {'USA': 329,000,000, 'THA': 70,000,000} #as of 2021 gnp['USA'] // pop['USA'] 65805 gnp['THA'] // pop['THA'] 7027 Seems more like a distribution of resources issue... so why not jack up taxes on the wealthiest 1% and use it to pay for things like high-speed fiber in all the rural areas? Doubtless this would lead to economic growth?
- lazide 4y ago
  It isn’t a ‘tax the 1%’ issue, it’s a corruption and market capture issue in the US that we refuse to acknowledge. Throwing more money at it usually makes that kind of problem WORSE not better.
  - photochemsyn 4y ago
    FDR's Rural Electricity Cooperatives did a lot to electrify much of the midwest and rural south, along with the creation of the TVA. I doubt anyone would want to rely on the current major providers, Comcast etc., who have such a bad track record, to accomplish this. Municipal broadband sounds like a better option: > "The Rural Electrification Act of 1936, enacted on May 20, 1936, provided federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve isolated rural areas of the United States. The funding was channeled through cooperative electric power companies, hundreds of which still exist today. (wiki)"
    - rstat1 4y ago
      There are fair few places in the US where the local power company also owns a fiber network and provides (relatively speaking) super cheap gigabit or multi-gigabit internet service However there are just as many places where the state's government was bought off to ban such networks because the majors are afraid of actual competition.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Don’t forget the existing providers have already received massive funds to ‘improve rural broadband’ in the same vein as that act. Hundred of billions of dollars if I remember correctly. It’s mostly been ineffective.

vijucat 4y ago

But is that within the city / country, or to outside the country, too? International bandwidth can be completely mediocre compared to local bandwidth. What I do is change the Server in speedtest.net to one in New York / wherever I have business in and test it out (from Hong Kong).

Existenceblinks 4y ago
I work remotely with american friends for years, video meeting has always been smooth (I never test traceroute though)

barbacoa 4y ago

How affordable is $50 in rural Thailand compared to the USA?

Existenceblinks 4y ago
$50 is about 1 week of 3 meals consumption per day (lower middle class)
- KMnO4 4y ago
  So a bit under $2.50/meal. That’s very comparable to lower/lower-middle in the USA.
  - Existenceblinks 4y ago
    In capital city, I'd say it's about $4-5/meal (including drink) in daily basis. For those who eat lots of things, $7/meal makes them full. --- footnote here: official income record of thai people/businesses does not really reflect reality. Lots of entities are kind of off-system.
    - wonderbore 4y ago
      Where do you spend 120 baht a meal? That's a restaurant meal, not the average meal. I don't spend more than 60 baht in Bangkok. At $7 (250 baht) you're talking about a night out (maybe except alcohol), way off of the "average meal".
      - Existenceblinks 4y ago
        (including drink) .. if you eat rice something with water everyday, it's quite a tight lifestyle.
        wonderbore 4y ago
        I love the tightest lifestyle eating rice and 1-2 side dishes from street vendors who deserve the money rather than foreign investors to extract money from the economy like leeches.

geoka9 4y ago

I'm in a top 10 most expensive city in the world (Canada) and the best I can get for $50 is 80 Mbps (and even that is only available as a promotion that you can't get by simply going to the ISP's website and buying a plan).

Matthias247 4y ago
I'm in Vancouver and paying about 55 CAD plus taxes for 300Mbps. So it's possible to get a bit more for similar money. The downside of that is however those are not available as regular offers, and you constantly have to deal with ISPs and rention programs to keep the price down. Even had various events where the ISP randomly increased the price inside one month, until I gave them a call and ask to fix it again. This price randomness never occured to me in germany, and just booking a fixed low price on a website was so much more convenient.
bpye 4y ago
I'm in Vancouver, BC and paying 80$/mo for 1Gbps symmetric. I could get 2.5Gbps but it would be about twice the cost - and I would have to get something that can do 2.5G link speed on an SFP+, not many devices can.
jagger27 4y ago
I’m within 2km of Parliament and can’t get fibre. It’s disgusting.
rubatuga 4y ago
In Winnipeg, Canada, I get 500Mbps up/down for 75$.
doublerabbit 4y ago
$50 gets me 2Mb ADSL here in the city centre of Glasgow. Your lucky.
dghlsakjg 4y ago
Have you looked at smaller ISPs? I live in rural BC and I'm was able to get 80Mb for $35 using a no-name internet only provider with no contract. If I went with one of the big cable companies I would be paying at least double for the same thing

underlines 4y ago

I'm Swiss and had Init7. Moved to Thailand (BKK) in 2016 and was so disappointed by a very new condominium in the center, which didn't even allowed for FTTH lines. Real Estate Developers usually make contracts within their Condos, to force the whole building to use only one provider.