News 118 Countries Have Cheaper Broadband Internet Than the US Right Now

[Admin]

UK research listed the U.S. in the 119th spot in terms of pricing for consumer broadband Internet access.

118 Countries Have Cheaper Broadband Internet Than the US Right Now : Read more

 

[Dantte]

This is extremely misleading!

A lot of those countries with lower cost are very small and have very low amounts and easy to implement infrastructure to support their broadband. And others like SYRIA, broadband may be the cheapest, but access to such services is virtually non-existent, so of course its cheap, $0 have been invested in infrastructure there.

You want avg speeds in the US to equal Taiwan (85Mbps)... how many TRILLIONS do you have to invest in the infrastructure to support such a system nation wide?

A fair and accurate article would compare the US prices and speeds against countries with similar sized (sq-mileage), similar population, and similar access to services. Bottom line, there are 3 major variables not accounted for in this article!

 

[Giroro]

"Despite the almost abysmal rankings for pricing on the global scale, the U.S. fares quite well when it comes to broadband speeds. In 2017, the average connection in the U.S. had a speed of 20 Mbps. In 2018 that figure rose to 25.86 Mbps, and in 2019 it jumped to 32.89 Mbps. "

What is the definition/minimum speed of broadband in this context? I think the FCC started using 25/3 Mbps back in 2015. Has is it increased since then, or based on our current FCC, lowered? Or at least how does the UK research define it?

You want avg speeds in the US to equal Taiwan (85Mbps)... how many TRILLIONS do you have to invest in the infrastructure to support such a system nation wide?

The answer is "literally no amount of money can upgrade our internet infrastructure". Because right now it isn't a funding problem its a legislation/monopoly problem. It is nearly impossible to get permits to lay fiber on public lands - and it is essentially illegal for competition to enter the market in many municipalities.
Not that the cost would matter - Internet is not a public utility, so it isn't "our" infrastructure at all.
For what it's worth, the cost to simply lay the lines is estimated at $61Billion (and we've already paid these companies for it many times over, according to "The book of broken promises".)

Economists Put the Tab at $61 Billion to Bring Fiber Broadband to Rural U.S. - Telecompetitor

Economists from CostQuest and Parsons Applied Economics estimated the cost to deploy fiber to unserved U.S. rural areas, assuming carriers deploy GPON. Telecom is one of three subsidized industries that the economists . . .

www.telecompetitor.com

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394

 

[cryoburner]

This is extremely misleading!

A lot of those countries with lower cost are very small and have very low amounts and easy to implement infrastructure to support their broadband. And others like SYRIA, broadband may be the cheapest, but access to such services is virtually non-existent, so of course its cheap, $0 have been invested in infrastructure there.

You want avg speeds in the US to equal Taiwan (85Mbps)... how many TRILLIONS do you have to invest in the infrastructure to support such a system nation wide?

A fair and accurate article would compare the US prices and speeds against countries with similar sized (sq-mileage), similar population, and similar access to services. Bottom line, there are 3 major variables not accounted for in this article!

I agree. Also, since average broadband speeds in the US are among the fastest in the world (15th place out of 206 countries going by this data), higher average pricing arguably makes sense. Sure, the average price of broadband may be higher than in 58% of the countries listed, but it's also faster than in 93% of the countries listed. As a result, the cost of Internet in the US actually looks rather good on a cost-per-megabit basis.

Of course, looking at the data in a logical way like that doesn't get you clickbait headlines like "118 Countries Have Cheaper Broadband Internet Than the US Right Now". Let's just ignore the performance of the Internet in those countries. Sure, you can mention the $6.60 cost of broadband in Syria, but one should also point out that the average speed of this "broadband" is less than 1 mbps.

Also, it should be noted that the data in this study doesn't account for affordability, instead simply using a quick currency conversion to USD. That often won't be representative of how affordable something is in a country, as it doesn't account for how much income people are actually making in these regions, what their cost of living is, and how much of their money goes to things like taxes. That makes the ranking a bit more vague than what is shown here.

 

[AlistairAB]

There's always a bunch of people agitating to get the government involved. The U.S. internet is perfectly fine. U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world and if people actually wanted faster internet, they'd pay for it. Most people don't see any value in going faster than 75mbps, even the heavy users. I personally just buy the slowest fibre to the home package for low latency and call it a day.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

There isn't competition in US markets so prices are going to be high.

 

[bobalazs]

Here in Hungary i pay 10 euros a month for gigabit internet 1 gbit down, 300 Mbps up.

 

[Giroro]

if people actually wanted faster internet, they'd pay for it.

You can't pay more for something that doesn't exist... Well, I guess you technically can and that actually happens all the time with US ISPs, but you won't actually get what you pay for.
Something like 1/3 of the country doesn't have access to that 75mbps, regardless of what they're willing to pay.
But meh. You you're trolling so you already know that.

 

[gg83]

I think its similar to our healthcare system in the US. Very expensive. If we want innovation it costs money right?

 

[spongiemaster]

The FCC's minimum download speed to qualify as broadband is 25mbps. Looking at the rankings, only 26 out of the 207 ranked countries have a mean download speed that would qualify as broadband by FCC standards.

Maybe the headline should be: "Most of the world still has terrible internet, unsurprisingly cheaper than US"

 

[closs.sebastien]

we need to compare the same things.
I'm in France, and the graph say France is between 20 and 40 €.
For 20 - 40 €, you become the standard dsl or cable, so between 5 and 16 Mbs.
If you are in an area with optical fiber (and not available everywhere - I'm personally still waiting), it may be up to 2 Gbs, but average 200-300 Mb, and for 45-150 € (depends of the speed you want -300, 500, 1gbs, 2gbs, and if you take phone and tv with, or only internet).

Most of french people have dsl between 8 and 15 Mb, with tv, for about 35 or 40 € per month.

 

[ynhockey]

The numbers in the speed comparison on their site seem completely baseless. If you compare it to the one on speedtest.net for example, the averages at SpeedTest are 5x+ higher. The SpeedTest averages also strike me as much more accurate. For example, cable.co.uk lists Israel as having an average of 8.85 mbps, while SpeedTest lists it at over 84 mbps. For those not in the know: the minimum landline Internet package possible to buy in Israel is 15 mbps, and a 40 mbps package costs about 10% more, so very few people go for the lower one. Even without fiber, packages of up to 500 mbps dedicated are offered via DOCSIS 3.x—and their price is reasonable, below $50/mo. For those who have fiber connections (probably ~15%), 100 mbps is the lowest package, going up to 1 gbps in 2019, for about the same prices as 15–200 mbps for regular VDSL/Cable broadband.

 

[cryoburner]

The numbers in the speed comparison on their site seem completely baseless. If you compare it to the one on speedtest.net for example, the averages at SpeedTest are 5x+ higher. The SpeedTest averages also strike me as much more accurate.

I'm not sure if this study is any better, but the SpeedTest results look wrong. The average download speed in the United States is over 130 megabits?

The reason for their high numbers makes perfect sense though. The demographic of people regularly checking their Internet speeds at that site tend to be those with the highest connection speeds. The majority of those with lower-speed connections are simply less likely to care as much about whether they are getting their full performance, or are not aware of the site. Most of their traffic likely comes from heavy downloaders, so you end up with a more tech-savy demographic, who will in turn tend to have higher-end Internet plans than the public at large. So the results get skewed in favor of higher connection speeds.