Broadband Pricing Across The World? 843
Freedom_Canadian writes "I was wondering if it would be possible to put up a world map with broadband internet pricing. The prices in Eastern Canada are ridiculous comparing to some states, around $24 US for DSL or cable. I would like to know who is getting screwed, and who are the lucky ones." What are the best and worst prices in your own area? Perhaps someone handy with graphics can collect some good data points from your comments and create such a beast.
Paying More For Choices (Score:5, Informative)
For my area, I get DSL for $40 (Verizon or the one Verizon reseller), dial-up for $15, or I can go for my own leased line. At work We could get Business Cable ($150+), dial-up $15, or (the chosen option) a fractional T1 from our telco. It's $300-something for 384k.
ADSL is cheap in Western Canada.. (Score:5, Informative)
I guess it depends what part of the world you live in, the cable here is great too.. capped at 8mbps/512kbps if you want Shaw, but it's a bit more pricy at around $45/mo unless you get the cable/TV bundle.
You're lucky (Score:2, Informative)
Vancouver Area Here (Score:5, Informative)
Isle of Man (Score:1, Informative)
bleh (Score:1, Informative)
In the UK (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK there are basically two options:
NTL (cable)
150kbits; 18GBP/month = 33USD/month
600kbits; 25GBP/month = 46USD/month
1000kbits; 35GBP/month = 64USB/month
BT (ADSL)
500kbits; 23GBP/month = 42USD/month
In all cases upstream is worse than downstream; on NTL it's only 120kbits on the 600kbits option, I'm not sure about the others. With BT you get 250kbits upstream.
BT also supply office connections, you can look up the numbers for those if you're interested ;-)
Here's a site (Score:5, Informative)
Central Canada (Score:2, Informative)
The two most popular broadband providers in my area are:
Shaw Cable [www.shaw.ca]
MTS DSL [mts.mb.ca]
my $0.02 (Score:2, Informative)
I live in Sweden and I'm on a 1Mb/8Mb DSL (no bandwidth limits and 1 static IP) and I'm paying 398 SEK ($55) a month.
New Zealand (Score:2, Informative)
New Zealand prices (Score:4, Informative)
NZ$70 is about 35->40 USD
Finnish cities (Score:3, Informative)
Most importantly, there are no caps and they don't seem to care about running servers.
Here are the prizes for Switzerland (Score:3, Informative)
OK:
500kBit/s: 45 CHF, $36.79
1MBit/s: 60 CHF, $49.06
2MBit/s: 75 CHF, $61.32
Source [cablecom.ch], Currency conversion [yahoo.com].
Denmark (Score:2, Informative)
I think the smallest ADSL package is 256/128 and costs about 50$/mo.
Re:New Zealand Prices (Score:1, Informative)
finance.yahoo.com says $60NZ = ~$40USD.
Northeastern Pirkanmaa, Central Finland. (Score:2, Informative)
49 euros a month for DSL at 512/512 kbps, ~120 to open it in the first place. That's about average in Finland. I'm actually pretty lucky, as it's higher in areas where the only broadband provider is the local telephone company.
The differences areally in Finland can be big. In a small town you might get 256/256 for 69 euros a month, if you'll get any DSL at all. On the other hand, a student in Oulu can get a nice 8M/8M VDSL pipe for less than 40 euros.
Local telcos are what are keeping prices up in the first place. For the last few miles they own the lines and have a de facto monopoly, and they can charge an arm and a leg for it. No other ISP will want to offer me broadband, although I should feel lucky for having it in a town of 7000 - pretty small even by Finnish standards - in the first place. The situation in big cities is much better with multiple ISPs, but you might get in trouble in your flat if you'd have to pull wires there and the apartment council consists of mostly elderly people... One solution would be WLAN of course, but it hasn't really caught on.
The government has been trying to get it in control, with the aim being getting cable for 36 euros a month, but the only real solution I can see is the government subsidising cablework like has been done in Sweden and owning the infrastructure. But instead we're throwing money at digital television, which could be done through a fat pipe anyway.
A significant plus is that in Finland there aren't any transfer costs at all, just a monthly fee.
Prices in Germany (Score:5, Informative)
Cable internet is available in my area as well. Prices range from 10EUR(12$) for 64/64 to 120EUR(150$) for 4096/1024.
Re:In the UK (Score:5, Informative)
600kbits; 25GBP/month = 46USD/month
Is I believe dependant on receiving an extra service, either telephone or cable-tv from NTL.
Certainly the same applies to telewest area but I believe that NTL and Telewest are now merged.
I had to pay 30GBP per month for the 600K service because I didn't want another service.
ALSO: NTL, at least around the Leicester area seem to block by default many ports; someone I know had to run VNC server on an unusually low port in order to be able to get incoming connections.
Also, not all ADSL are the same; a few offer fixed IP addresses, and some dont put any kind of artificial restriction on service use. Telewest on the other hand prohibited running public servers or using the connection for VPN in to corporate network when I last heard.
Sam
Sweden (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Slashdot and the UK pound sign (Score:3, Informative)
Er... according to xe.com: 1 GBP = 1.83650 USD
Re:In the UK (Score:3, Informative)
BT (Wireless)
11Mbit shared
Similar to their ADSL pricing I believe - though it's only in trial.
Telewest/Blueyonder (Cable)
1Mbit/256kbit = $64 (GBP 35)
Scottish Hydro (IPoverPower)
2Mbit/2Mbit = $55 USD/month (GBP 30)
Ednet (SDSL)
2.3Mbit/2.3Mbit = $550 (GBP 299)
More options than that (Score:4, Informative)
For instance, I have Telewest Blueyonder Cable and get 512/128kbs for 25GBP/month.
There's a lot of ADSL companies and if you shop around you can get some quite good deals - I've seen 512kbs from as low as 19GBP/month, and 2Mb/s fo 29GBP/month.
Once you've done the GBP-$ conversion, a lot of these will look quite expensive, but that's quite a recent thing - a result of the dollar's fall in value. For instance, although I am paying the equivalent of $46/month now, back in september it was worth $38. These figures include our 17.5% VAT.
By the way, why the hell won't Slashdot display the symbol for Pounds Sterling? Grr.
Re:Sweden - Cable by Chello. (Score:2, Informative)
Sao Paulo, Brazil (Score:1, Informative)
But not in Brazil (Score:3, Informative)
The 300k/300k DSL service arround the country are about that price too, and they are pretty restrictive (3gb down / mo.).
Looking at the minimum salary of Brazil (about US$90) you can conclude that this is really a high price: more than 50% of the paycheck that more than 70% of the Brazilians get.
Norway (NextGenTel) (Score:3, Informative)
It might be a stiff price compared to the US, but at least there are no restrictions on the line. That is to say, there are no transfer limits, no rules against running servers, etc.
Sweden (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In the UK (Score:1, Informative)
Here in the UK we really get shafted on speed, the price of our 512k pretty much equals the price of US 2mb. I understand the average American connection is 2mb, in the UK the average is 512k/128k down (256k down for ADSL).
American 2mb - 30 GBP/month
UK 512k - 25 GBP/month
Blueyonder 2mb - 80 GBP/month
BT 2mb - 150 GBP/month
Nildram 2mb - 70 GBP/month
Demon 2mb - 70 GBP/month
OneTel 2mb - 80 GBP/month
The complete list of Swedish Broadband (Score:2, Informative)
Broadband in Argentina (Score:2, Informative)
South Africa is truly screwed (Score:2, Informative)
France, vive la grenouille ! (Score:3, Informative)
For now rates are the same in the whole country where DSL is available, some of the cheap offers are available only in the big cities. Everyone has to pay 13 euros/month for the phone line in addition to DSL costs, which are as follow:
Euro is around 1.27 USD these days: historical high, going up, historical low is 0.82 USD IIRC.
The great thing about DSL in France is the Grenouille [grenouille.com] site where users report download/upload/ping per city per provider all the time (plus their horror stories), all french providers are covered it helps a lot when choosing a provider!
Laurent
Re:Prices in Germany (Score:1, Informative)
1500/256 DSL flat costs around 65 EUR including ISDN line (can't get it without phone line)
There are some areas where you can get 2048/512 cable for 50 EUR (ISH) including cable modem rent.
France: 29 / mo for 2Mbps (Score:3, Informative)
There's no cap whatsoever, and in fact at some times I get up to 8Mbps download, like around 5AM. I also have a static IP for free. The main drawback is that it's not very reliable, mainly because of their homegrown set top box -- they had design their own since no OEM has an ADSL+TV+Phone set top box on their catalog. No setup fee. The only extra fee is when you cancel the line, costs you 100, decreases with time down to 0 after a couple years. Modem is free and included.
Quite a good deal.
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Finnish cities (Score:3, Informative)
Sonera 1m/512k 61,99e/month
Saunalahti 256k/256k 35e/month
Saunalahti 1m/512k 54e/month (+8e for static IP)
Helsinki SHDSL
Nebula 2m/2m 225e/month
In the northern city of Oulu the local phone company OPOY offers outrageously cheap and fast ~10mbps connections. Ditto student housing all ove r the country.
These are private connections. Increasingly you get broadband as part of your housing, and it can be as low as 10e/month.
Japan calling here (Score:4, Informative)
roll out of the 45Mbit/3Mbit service starts this month for a few hundred yen more.
France: DSL lines, the winter hit ! (Score:1, Informative)
29.90 EUR -> 512kb/s
39.90 EUR -> 1024kb/s
http://tpsl.tps.fr/
free.fr (Iliad group)
29.99 EUR
- 2Mb/s internet bandwidth with static IP
- free unlimited national phonecall + "local anywhere number"
- 100 TV chanels (3.5Mb/s additional bandwith is used and is freed for internet if you stop TV)
9Telecom.fr (from LDCom)
17.90 EUR -> 128kb/s
19.90 EUR -> 512kb/s
24.90 EUR -> 1024 kb/s
34.90 EUR -> 2 Mb/s
tele2.fr (Group Tele2 AB)
19.58 EUR -> 128kb/s
24.59 EUR -> 512kb/s
tiscali.fr
20 EUR -> 128kb/s
40 EUR -> 1024kb/s
club-internet.fr (T-Online Group)
24.90 EUR -> 128kb/s
29.90 EUR -> 512kb/s
39.90 EUR -> 1024kb/s
During end of last year there was a real boom in broadband access and as a result multiplication of the providers (about 20 by now !), price continue to drop while bandwidth are skyrocketing !
The biggest is Wanadoo (a spinoff from FranceTelecom) with about 50% of the market. But one of hottest player here is Free, because their offer is just amazing !
Facts (Score:2, Informative)
- bridged ethernet
- dynamic IP (though it hasn't changed as I keep my firewall machine on constantly)
- no ports blocked any direction
Saunalahti blocks incoming SMTP but apparently you can get mail routed to you via their mail server, at least if you've bought static IP addresses.
I've never heard of bandwidth caps in Finland, though a cable modem operator took action over a year ago when some clients transferred some crazy amounts in a short period.
Re:26 Mbit/s in Sweden (Score:1, Informative)
its called crosstalk.
go and learn some electrodynamics if you are interested in the tech details
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:5, Informative)
DSL prices in Japan can often be comparable or maybe a little more than what they may be in many areas of the United States, but the big difference is the speed you get in Japan for that price. Take a look at this:
http://www.gol.com/personal/ntt_adsl_e.html
Look at the line on the bottom of the pricing chart. You can get 40 megabit down DSL (Yes, 40!) for about 4000 yen/month. The exchange rate is about 107 yen to the dollar, so that's under 40 bucks, or looked at another way: it's $1 per megabit, how fast would you like to go?
Also, notice that the ISP fee is the same regardless of speed, and the telco fee varies by only 150 yen from the price of 1.5 meg service to the price of 40 meg service. I imagine that not many people in a 40 meg service area will go for the 1.5 meg service
This small price differences reflect the facts that in Japan:
1) The DSL market has actually grown competitive;
2) It doesn't really cost you, as a telco, any more to make the line go faster if it will support it. It doesn't cost you that much more as an ISP either, because even if I have a 40 mpbs down DSL line, when was the last time you saw an FTP server that would feed you at that rate?
Here in LA, I have 2 meg down business cable (no restrictions, global static IP), and I can get near wire speed from an FTP site with a big pipe.
In Japan, I had 100 megabits from my desk to our network core, with only two Cisco switches in between, yet the fastest downloads I ever saw were on the order of 8 mbps, from an FTP site that was both close (only a few hops away) and had massive bandwidth, the biggest pipes in the whole country. I expect high-speed users probably see similar performance, or maybe less, because they aren't plugged right into the network core over 100 megabit ethernet. So what good does 40 megabit DSL do you if no FTP site will serve you at more than 8 - 10 mbps, and there are very few even of those? Unless your provider runs a huge FTP mirror and it has huge bandwidth to the DSL network, you'll never realize anywhere near the potential of that pipe.
In Japan, you can also get 100 megabit fiber to the home for not too much more than I pay for my business cable. Here's a price list:
http://www.gol.com/personal/ntt_b_e.html
But again, what good does 100 megabit service do you if you can't pull at anywhere near that rate?
These highly competitive prices are despite the fact that nearly every aspect of running an ISP (or telco) in Japan is more costly than it is in the United States, and come from the fact that while it took a lot longer to get any kind of competition going in the telco market in Japan than it did here, they have at length done so. Best of all, the competition seems to be actually working as intended, whereas it has mostly failed here in the United States.
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:3, Informative)
1.5, 8, 12, 24-26, or 40-45Mbps ADSL: 4000-10000 yen
varying cable speed: 4000-10000 yen
100Mbps FTTH: 4500-9000 yen
wireless: my god... I should be glowing there is so much wireless here.
I've heard your argument about Japan and its cheap internet access time and again, but I'm not sold on it. Internet access used to be very expensive here. It wasn't until GOJ told NTT to play nice and ADSL took off that prices became excellent.
I've lived in Tokyo prefecture. I now live in Saitama. I've friends in Chiba, Osaka, and Aomori (country people talk different!). We've all no less than 4 ADSL loop providers available to choose from and who knows how many ISPs. Competition really is a great thing.
bull (Score:4, Informative)
Most of the trouble with WorldCom was that they were lying about their network growth. In response, every other carrier was sinking vast sums of money into their networks, and every Tom, Dick, and Jane with VC and a backhoe was laying new long-haul fibre. At the same time, advances in technology was pushing the amount of data you could push through a strand throught the roof. All existing routes could be (and many were ) upgraded for just the cost of new end equipment--no new fibre necessary.
In the end, it became clear that this capacity wasn't being used. Most of the fibre laid was left unlit, because there were no buyers for the potential capacity. Much of it has been sold at bankruptcy auctions. If you find you need more network capacity from New York to Chicago, say, you have multiple cheap options. You can buy new endpoint equipment, thereby increasing how much you can shove through your existing fibre. You can buy already lit fibre cheap from small-time networks that are going under. You can buy unlit fibre from failed startups, and plug your endpoint equipment into it there. Finally, you can just ask Sprint or MCI their rates, which are insane for short distances, but if you can bring a connection to their point of presence, they'll dump your traffic in whatever city you like, cheap.
The density argument only works when you talk about the density of a city. Given the fibre is already a sunk cost, there is no technological reason for the cost/bandwidth disparity the US is observing.
Not that cut and dried. (Score:3, Informative)
Here are the tables for Xtra, and part of New Zealand Telecom, part owned by Microsoft, and ADSL monopoly for most of the country.
Home: http://jetstream.xtra.co.nz/chm/0,5123,203086-2023 43,00.html [xtra.co.nz]
Yes, it's a huge rip-off. But hey, it's OK because Telecom is owned wholly by owned subsidiaries of Ameritech and now "a variety of institutional investors" [telecom.co.nz]. Thanks for selling us out, New Zealand government - the NZ telco market is Pwn3d.Business: http://www.xtra.co.nz/products/0,,5804,00.html [xtra.co.nz]
Re:ADSL is cheap in Western Canada.. (Score:1, Informative)
The same goes for Eastern Ontario. In Ottawa we have quite a bit of choice too with Rogers offering cable access and the likes of Bell, Magma Communications, and iStop offering ADSL.
I'm personally w/ Magma and I find their prices quite good and they have many options to pick from:
I've had the Professional package for a while now and I've never had any problems. I run my own web server, and mail server. And to top it off, Magma supports Linux.
Videotron (Score:3, Informative)
1) 128 Kbps for CAN$25/month (modem included) It has a 1 GB/month up down limit.
2) 3 Mbps down / 15 Kbps up for CAN$35/month (modem not included) It has a 10 GB/month down and 5 GB/month up limit.
3) 4 Mbps down / 30 Kbps up for CAN$60/month (modem not included). No usage limit.
Netherlands (Score:3, Informative)
I used to pay 50 Euro (US$64) for 1.5 Mbps down / 128 Kbps up to Chello (cable provider which belongs to UPC) and never had any problems with them. However, running servers and connection sharing were not allowed and upload speed was lacking (especially when working from home). At the moment I have 8 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up for 65 Euro (US$83) with Demon and I have never been happier. Demon allows one to run their own servers (no support of course) and connect as many computers as you want.
Both providers have no fixed bandwith cap but an Acceptable/Fair Use Policy, although based on what I've read in newsgroups and web forums you're better off with Demon since they seem to allow more traffic. Some people claim to have as much traffic per month as I have in a year, but I digress
Since I share my connection with two friends who also live here I can split the costs, which makes it even better. And being able to download things quickly when you need them, be it new *BSD sources or a Linux iso makes me very happy
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:2, Informative)
The Canadian government started an initiative to make sure that all households in Canada *could* have high speed internet access "by 2004" (this isn't even close to actually happening, from what I've seen).
It was SUGGESTED that the Canadian Government foot the bill, back in 2002. It seems to have gone to the provincial level since then, and there IS being money given to build infrastructure. For example, $55M over 3 years in Ontario, only for northern and rural communities. Yeah, that's HEAVY funding there...
This essentially brings the cost of subscribing to broadband in a small community in line with metro centres where the infrastructure already exists.
This means that if you live in even a remotely sizeable city (100K+ population), you'll never see this affect the cost of broadband access. Probably not even anywhere with 10K+ population, if it's not too far from a larger city.
And if you do live somewhere that it will affect the cost in, it'll only affect installation cost.
The Canadian Government does not and never has subsidized the operating costs involved with broadband internet. Same goes for all provincial governments, to my knowledge.
prices in sweden, it's pretty cheap (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Paying More For Choices (Score:1, Informative)
In Ankara, Turkey (visiting my in-laws) we were just researching pricing. There, prices start at about $60 US for 64/32 DSL (no that's not a typo) 384/128 service was something like $300 US/month - gov't monopoly. Wish I hadn't thrown out the price list.
Poland (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Paying More For Choices (Score:2, Informative)
>complain:
> dsl costs 40 euro's, and is 3Mbit down, 128k up
We can't complain, but it's now even cheaper than that : http://www.adsl2fit.be/ now offers 8Mbit down/512Kbit up for 60 euros a month, or 4 Mbit down/512kbit up for 35 euros a month.
(1 euro approximatelly equals 1 US dollar)
Prices in France (Score:2, Informative)
But one ISP provides 4Mbps for 30 Euros, including VoIP and Television over IP.