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.
Re:Paying More For Choices (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as you have anything resembling a monopoly on any critical aspect the prices will remain at such insane levels. I.e. All the undersea cables terminate in one place and that company also owns the only landline network. In fact they only started having competition in Cellular 2 years ago
Re:Paying More For Choices (Score:4, Interesting)
over here in Belgium, I don't think that we can complain:
dsl costs 40 euro's, and is 3Mbit down, 128k up
cable is slightly cheaper, but is 10Mbit down, 128k up.
currently, we're at over 1.2 million broadband lines, of which there's about 800.000 dsl. and that's on a population of 10 million.
there are more dsl lines because of less installation hassles: cable requires new equipment in the house (with scary drilling and such), for dsl, all you have to do is place some filters on the phone sockets.
yes. we're number 3 in the world
(for penetration and density of installed lines, compared to the population)
and it gets even better!
sometime later this year, we're getting lines which will probably be 15Mbit downstream/5Mbit upstream, but only slightly more expensive than standard dsl or cable, and with optional video-on-demand, dvb and other nice stuff.
bye,
h357
Re:Paying More For Choices (Score:3)
So in what locales do people have the government-subsidized, no choice broadband to which you're referring? (Please supply references to back up any assertions that broadband in those locales is subsidized.)
Re:Paying More For Choices (Score:5, Interesting)
Population less of just a hair over a 1 million, square area of 651,900km. With our 2 biggest cities just over 200k population. Why does this matter?
The population density of Saskatchewan, and much of rural Canada, is very low and from what I can see it is very similar in density to rural American States.
Our telco (Sasktel) has committed to every town, with greater than 40 people in this province having access to ADSL. Several of the enlightened employees I have spoken too have commented on the deployment as well.
In addition our Telco (Sasktel - a government owned corporation 'crown corporation') also distributes Digital television via DSL - so these communities also will in the near term get access to this service as well.
But of course we must be paying an absolute fortune for this wonderful widely distributed service - right? Because we "pay for choice (even if it doesn't exist in your area)"
1.54 down / 384 up = $45.99 Canadian a month.
Which (with our current great exchange rate) would work out to about $36 American. Where our dollar traditionally resides it would work out to right around $30 American.
So even in a rural province - we have an extremely high level of access, and we don't pay through the nose for it.
And yes there are competitors so there is a free market in effect (in dense population areas) but for rural communities it takes a benevolent (i use that term with some sarcasm) organization to push access upward and outward.
DC Area (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:ADSL is cheap in Western Canada.. (Score:2)
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.
Location, Location, Location (Score:5, Insightful)
The same goes from state-to-state, and area-to-area. Areas with higher population density will generally have less expessive broadband than areas where the population is spread out.
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:5, Interesting)
With the above taken into consideration, NOW try to explain why broadband is so damn expensive in the US?
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:5, Interesting)
"What?" I hear you say. The thing is this: many things aren't sold by value, they're sold by pricepoint. That is, they're sold by how much the seller thinks they can convince people to pay. People like certain numbers for whatever reason, and don't like others. However, these pricepoints are just about the same in the US and Canada. I've seen CDs in the states that cost the same as in Canada, but in US dollars. Same with DVDs, and some commodity electronics. Often, the Canadian price seems higher, but works out to about the same thing.
The Canadian dollar has massive purchasing power, as long as you stay in Canada.
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't always work out that way, the worse case is that you will pay the same price after exchange.
Unfortunately there is one other thing that you have to consider. The fucking
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:2)
Our broadband is so expensive/poor because BT have a monopoly, and generally appear to sit around twiddling their thumbs as opposed to doing anything. They literally seem to own everything, and the idea of competition is just that. You get billed by someone else, but BT runs the whole show, and it's up to them how much they're going to charge and how shoddy their DSL supply is.
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
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:3, Interesting)
In Japan, South Korea, et. al, there aren't as many lo
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.
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:5, Insightful)
The Canadian government has initiatives to bring broadband out to rural areas (i.e. way up North). They don't subsidize broadband for the vast majority of Canadians (who are those living in fairly urban settings). Cogeco isn't getting a cheque from the government for my broadband.
Canadian citizens have to pay taxes to support their socialist government
Right...socialist. And of course where you live every road is a pay road, every service is a user-pay (fire call -- pay up. Need police services? Better have your chequebook!), and the government is minimalist -- anything else is socialist.
Re:Location, Location, Location (Score:2, Interesting)
Guelph is not rural, but not densely urban either. However, I pay as much or as little as any other DSL subscriber in southern ontario.
Broadband is not subsidised around here, but there is competition. _Capitalist_ _competition_! The market, remember that thing?
The reason we have this competition is because our regulatory environment is, dare I say it, better than that of the US. You shoul
You're lucky (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Vancouver Area Here (Score:5, Informative)
New York Region (Score:2)
upstate New York (Score:2, Insightful)
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 ;-)
Re:In the UK (Score:2)
BT isn't the only DSL provider, although most require that you have a BT landline to use them.
Thus: cost of BT line 29 per quarter, plus cost of DSL provider. Note that BT's own costs don't include line rental - it's extra.
I paid 23 per month ($30) for 512/256 DSL in London from Pipex [pipex.net], who were extremely good to me. I'd have used them in a heartbeat if my new house was in a DSL-capable a
Re:In the UK (Score:2)
Hmm, I thought all the other DSL 'providers' were just resellers for BT?
Re:In the UK (Score:2)
You did need a BT line to use the service, and BT owns all the exchanges and all the DSLAMs and so on. I think they're prohibited from keeping competition out of contention by leveraging their hardware monopoly though.
Re:In the UK (Score:2)
There are a few like ednet who take advantage of local loop unbundling to put their own systems in BT's exchanges - allowing them to offer SDSL and similar.
Slashdot and the UK pound sign (Score:2)
All the numbers in that post without a $ in front of them are in GBP.
Currently you can get about $1.60 per pound.
If Bush keeps fucking with the economy, we might get $2 to the pound, which will be good for me since it would make my Apple purchases even cheaper. Well, the ones I can bring back on the plane that is.
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: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
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.
Here's a site (Score:5, Informative)
It depends on the service... (Score:2)
Cable around here (NY suburbs) runs about $40-$50 per month, and ADSL is about the same. SDSL can run from that to $399, and a T1 costs about $500 a month.
Ireland (Score:5, Interesting)
It's now up to 70euro a month, but my provider upgraded my link to nearly 3mbit/s.
I think i'm getting my moneys worth now.
pricing (Score:2, Insightful)
Northern Virginia (Score:2)
3mbps
$50
Re:Northern Virginia (Score:2)
landline requirement (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it like this everywhere? Anyway to get around this requirement? Like many folks, I use cellular exclusively, so it sucks to have to pay for a landline every month just to get broadband.
Re:landline requirement (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:landline requirement (Score:2)
Re:landline requirement (Score:4, Interesting)
That may be illegal, although I'm not sure what laws California has on forced bundling... If I were you I'd contact the California Public Utilities Commission's Public Advisor [ca.gov] office, and find out if that is acceptable grounds for filing a complaint.
UK Mainland (Score:2)
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)
Re:New Zealand (Score:2)
to the beach bro..
useless unless quality of service is also measured (Score:5, Interesting)
I pay about $10 a month more than the average DSL customer in my area, $20 a month more than the people who sign up with special promotions at cheap providers. I also get a static IP, zero guff about AUP, clean Ethernet rather than PPPoE, and direct access to the engineer who built and maintains the network (including after-hours). I wouldn't change and I recommend mom-n-pops to anyone who asks.
$24??? (Score:2)
I guess ridiculous depends on your point of view. It costs $60 get in on the ground floor of dsl/cable in the SouthEast U.S., at least from an ISP with a decent AUP.
Re:$24??? (Score:2)
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.
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.
Prices in OH (Score:2)
NOVA.... (Score:2)
China prices (Score:5, Interesting)
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].
consider yourself lucky (Score:2)
I'm sure that beats you're worst pricing hands down
the Netherlands... (Score:2)
Consumer ADSL ranges from 19 Euro/month for 384/128 kb/s (down/up), to 80 Euro/month for 8Mb/1Mb on a 100GB/month limit (I've actually exceeded it a few times).
There are many, many providers, each offering varying rates, download limits, policies, quality, and facilities (web hosting, usenet, etc.). Even better: they are engaged in a price war at the moment.
Re:the Netherlands... (Score:2)
What do you mean with that? Do you have to pay phone costs for each minute or is it absolutely, completely free?
Re:the Netherlands... (Score:2)
And since the dollar is worth shit these days, the prices in dollars are relatively high. $25 to $100.
Keep voting Bush, it's very good for our import :-) (yet not so great for our export)
Dallas area (Score:2)
Denmark (Score:2, Informative)
I think the smallest ADSL package is 256/128 and costs about 50$/mo.
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 fi
Netherlands ADSL (Score:2)
Cheapest is 512/512 kbit for around E20 per month.
I'm not complaining
Shaw Cable in Edmonton, AB, CA (Score:2)
Rolla, Missouri - Fidelity Networks (Score:2)
Vancouver ,B.C. (Score:2)
Sweden (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sweden - Cable by Chello. (Score:2, Informative)
Sweden (Score:2, Informative)
24$ US = 36$ Canadian (Score:2)
Downtown NYC cable (Score:2)
bargaining (Score:3, Interesting)
So, I took my complaint to one of Comcast's phone reps, who lowered my monthly broadband/cable charge to about $34/mo. Not quite sure how I talked her into doing that, but whatever a discount is a discount.
South Florida (Score:2)
$53 (Score:2)
Rogers: good potential speed for the price, at lea (Score:2)
For reference: I'm located in Ottawa, Canada
50 bucks/mo. including tier 2 cable. 1Mbps (Score:2)
Czech Republic (Score:3, Interesting)
Standard dial-up connection is actually much more expensive because you have to pay per minute, there is no flat per-month tariff. If you want to be connected several hours each day, you'll easily pay over $400 (yes, four hundred) per month. The speed is 4 kB/s.
The cheapest DSL is about $40 a month. The speed less than 16 kb/s (the actual line speed is higher but there is 1:50 overbooking, which, according to Czech Telecom, is "normal") and you pay additional $15 for each 3 GB over the first 10 GB of traffic. Not very cool.
If you want real UNLIMITED ADSL connection and guaranteed speed of at least 16 kb/s, it will cost you about $800 a month.
Thank you very much. BTW, Bill Gates is coming over here this month to tell us how great it is to be on the Information Superhighway.
Alaska (Score:2)
-cp-
Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets [alaska-freegold.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Southeastern MA (Score:2)
This is Comcast cable. It's $2-3/mo cheaper if you provide your modem, and about $12 more if you're not a cable TV subscriber with them. Service is pretty good.
DSL is similarly priced.
----- ----- ----- -----
John Smith was right all along. (Score:2, Interesting)
Its all about what the market will bear. My cable modem cost %0.0167 what my rent does. My dad's is %0.0934 of his mortgage. He pays less than 1/2 what I pay because he lives in a small community that as a whole could not support a service that cost as much per
Telus ADSL in Vancouver (Score:2, Interesting)
Package includes:
- 1.5 Mbit downstream
- 512 Kbit upstream
- 2 dynamic IPs
- 3 e-mail addresses
They don't care about the usage of broadband NAT setups either, and they're also pretty relaxed on broadband.
JENS Monopoly (Score:2)
Finally, after twy years of bitching, JENS upgraded to DSL. We now pay $60/month for 1.5mbps down and who knows how much up. Actually, the upstream doesn't matter at all. Why? No glo
Mediacom (Score:2)
In western IL/eastern IA there is also DSL available from McLeodUSA and Qwest. Rates and speeds are pretty comparable: About $40/
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.
It's about monopolies (Score:2)
Norway (Score:2)
The list's from the Norwegian Post and Telecommunication Authority which all norwegian telecom operators are required t
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
Consider all the variables! (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Monthly Charge
2. Mbytes included
3. Extra Mbytes
4. Downstream Bandwidth
5. Upstream Bandwidth
In the good old USA, nobody charges per megabyte. Then you just have price/bandwidth to compare. That goes the same for the following:
Denmark TDC, Finland Elisa, France France Telecom Wanadoo, Germany Deutsche Telecom, Italy Telecom Italia, Japan NTT, Korea Korea Telecom, Luxembourg P&T, Mexico Telmex, Netherlands KPN
Spain Telefonica, Sweden Telia, Turkey Turk Telekom, United Kingdom British Telecom, United States Verizon
Those who have traffic caps and "per megabyte" charges for overage are:
Australia Telstra - Big Pond, Austria Telekom Austria, Belgium Belgacom - Turbo Line,
Canada Bell Canada Sympatico, Ireland Eircom, Netherlands KPN, New Zealand Telecom NZ, Switzerland Swisscom, Portugal Portugal Telecom
If you want to compare across the board, you have to make some arbitrary decisions, like "how much traffic does the average user consume" and "what is the minimum downstream and upstream bandwidth requirement". Repeat, ARBITRARY. Many researchers with "an agenda" manipulate these figures to make their country/telecoms provider look good or bad. It's easy to do.
I'll say 2GB/month, and 384/128. YMMV. Now you can say "this is what it will cost".
So, the following is what I come up with using the OECD data, which was collected in 2002:
Canada Bell Canada Sympatico 22.28
Korea Korea Telecom 27.58
Portugal Portugal Telecom 37.16
Belgium Belgacom - Turbo Line 38.67
Sweden Telia 39.65
United States Verizon 39.95
Japan NTT 40.76
United Kingdom British Telecom 41.51
Germany Deutsche Telecom 44
France France Telecom Wanadoo 44.42
Italy Telecom Italia 48.85
Netherlands KPN 51.1
Switzerland Swisscom 52.78
Denmark TDC 57.28
Norway Telenor 59.22
Finland Elisa 60.64
Portugal Portugal Telecom 66.5
Poland TPSA 71.58
Mexico Telmex 92.72
Spain Telefonica 95.22
Ireland Eircom 105.32
Australia Telstra - Big Pond 121.67
New Zealand Telecom NZ 131.27
Hungary Matav 248.64
Iceland Iceland Telecom 280
Turkey Turk Telekom 285.98
Apologies that the lameness filters have prevented me from presenting these figures in a more readable way.
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.
Japan calling here (Score:4, Informative)
roll out of the 45Mbit/3Mbit service starts this month for a few hundred yen more.
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$60/month (modem not included). No usage limit.
24$ in USA? (Score:4, Insightful)
25$ would be nice.
For your 'chart' be sure to take into effect the different relative value of a 'dollar'...
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
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]
Business: http://www.xtra.co.nz/products/0,,5804,00.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.