Worldwide mobile data costs compared

Sky Mobile Broadband 16mbps uncapped in UK only £10pm.
Sky Mobile Broadband 20mbps uncapped in UK only £28pm.
In 2006 T-Mobile (UK) 3G uncapped was £8.50.
 
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One thing you must remember about the US, UK and other markets is the number of operators, licencing + spectrum issues + costs and fixed line technology abundance. These factor in heavily since they influence the number of users you will have and the type of activity users typically engage in directly which changes you cost per megabyte. Then the sheer number of subcribers also play a role and this is also linked rather directly to the geographics of the host country when making a contended wireless service.

Hence it is not easily comparable. I think for a developing country with a avg population size, 6-10 major densely populated areas its okish but likely could be cheaper. Ofcause un like others the was the ironic situation of fixed and mobile operators competing for same customers but as ADSL and international cable usage increase I reckon the divide will widen and people will learn when to use which. Providers in Sa know this tho hence the push into fixed and mobile respectively.

Lastly I reckon they need to decide on how prolific they want mobile casual net usage to be as due to increased usage a lot of services can be created and they basically decide how its used based on cost per meg, handsets promoted and plain user information ads on services and usage possible
 
So where do these Idiots get their pricing from???
Khanya said:
Sky Mobile Broadband 16mbps uncapped in UK only £10pm.
Sky Mobile Broadband 20mbps uncapped in UK only £28pm.
In 2006 T-Mobile (UK) 3G uncapped was £8.50.
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It's a simple matter of competition. Since there's only 3 mobile operators (4 if you include Telkom) in SA who have been pretty cosy with each other, it's now up to the DSL industry to mature to international pricing standards which will force mobile internet prices down. Change is imminent.
 
Where do these guys get their numbers ? Maybe in S-Africa. In the EU I certainly paid a lot less than the prices on the table.

When in the Uk I had an uncapped 3.6mb (the max my phone could handle) HSDPA for £21, which inlcluded 3 hours anytime any number (in the UK) minutes.
My brother in Netherlands has a similar deal with T-Mobile Nederland. Uncapped HSDPA for around 18 Euro per month.

I agree with an earlier post, we only have three operators. There's not much competition which wil affect prices. I think that eventually we might also see similar uncapped HSDPA deals in S-Africa, due to massive amounts of bandwith coming in the next two years. It might be several years before we see it. Why do I think this might happen ? Who would've ever thought that we would see uncapped fixed line at affordable prices ? This gives me hope that we might some day see affordable uncapped for mobile.
 
The writer is thumb sucking.

For £20 per month on O2, I get 600 minutes, 2000 texts and unlimited internet - and I tether via my Milestone. (£25 gets you the same, but with 1200 minutes)

3 does 15GB for £25 = R0.017 per MB
 
The author is talking about data without a bundle, first paragraph
South Africans have become used to the pricing of R2 per megabyte for mobile data (3G/HSDPA in high-end devices or even GPRS/EDGE in feature phones). Mobile operators will offer 100 reasons, including "benchmark" studies, why the average rate paid by consumers is lower. The chief argument is that users buy data bundles, where rates are effectively lower than R2/MB.
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I know a lot of people that do not use bundles, they only use 10MB a month is their dumb arse argument
 
What a joke.... try roaming broadband costs. Recently in Australia and Dubai I used 2Mb of data.... charge > R300! MTN's website at the time said it was a lot more expensive to use data while roaming but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be 750% more.
 
hotmojo said:
The author is talking about data without a bundle, first paragraph
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Well, some of the UK providers are offering it FREE to get you to sign up for calling minutes. Don't get much cheaper than free.
 
I see T-mobile is doing a free HTC Desire, 1200 minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited internet for £35. (R385 per month) Think I best make a stop there today :)
 
15gb costs 25 pounds from Three mobile in UK 7.2MbPS
 
The average Opera Mini user in South Africa .... consumes 4MB of data.
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Checking and downloading my day's e-mail may easily use more than that. Even without downloading any mp3's, videos, or whatever, i.e just browsing, the least I used last month was 30Mb. I know it is not on a phone but a PC, but still, what kind of users are these?
 
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markings said:
Checking and downloading my day's e-mail may easily use more than that. Even without downloading any mp3's, videos, or whatever, i.e just browsing, the least I used last month was 30Mb. I know it is not on a phone but a PC, but still, what kind of users are these?
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Precisely the kind that use 3G ! ....and they are more common that you may think. In fact, I happen to be one of them :D .
I check my email and browse every day. I also partake in these forums from my netbook as well as my WM phone, download my essential updates daily (antivirus, windows, weather & stocks) and even download a few apps as needed, and still have a few meg to spare from my 1gig bundle at the end of the month. Of course we don't all have kids who play online games or spouses who watch YouTube and live on Facebook, and we generally use the local video hire for our entertainment needs. But mostly we have 'normal' jobs during the day that require us to be productive, plus we have a real life outside of the virtual world ;) .
:erm: ...why else do you think the mobile operators in SA still offer the 3G service ?! Clearly there are enough 'average' users around who make this offering a profitable one. For everyone else, well....there's DSL :D

Having said all that, 3G is still more expensive here than it should be. And those uncapped offerings would really gain the mobile companies serious market share.
 
news24 said:
Most of you guys are a bunch of idiots. Can't you read?

The article is not about CONTRACTS or DATA BUNDLES. Price per meg, no contract & no bundle, GET IT?
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which makes it a useless article, and not only that: intentionally misleading!
it wants to give the impression that the data costs in this country are reasonable compared to the markets listed, which is not so.

i think all these operators (im looking at you, VC) have some "independent research" they are sitting on to justify their pricing. this is their attempt (in the context of the current broadband price-war) to explain to us why we are not seeing them drop their prices.
 
news24 said:
Most of you guys are a bunch of idiots. Can't you read?

The article is not about CONTRACTS or DATA BUNDLES. Price per meg, no contract & no bundle, GET IT?
Click to expand...

Who you calling a idiot, you idiot?

"Some may argue that because of data bundle rate, even the R2 is too high. " - There is indeed a mention of bundles. Go read it again.
 
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