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Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

Google Fi (in the US, at least) is $10/GB. So 1000mb is $10, or $.01 per mb. It'd be only $.0139 on Fi.

That's quite a huge difference. The chart even says that US data would be $.09 which is still hugely different.

It claims to use the cheapest plan from the dominant carrier in the country. That doesn't mean that everyone is getting screwed like this, just most people.

They say they get the prices from ITU, but I don't know where on ITU they found that data, but I feel like maybe something is being used wrong.

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I can't imagine paying $10/GB for data, wow!

For reference, I'm paying about $23/month for unlimited everything in NL. I'm pretty sure that's not even the cheapest plan you could get, I just haven't switched providers in a couple of years.

Lithuania, around €10/month for everything unlimited. Granted, we have some of the cheapest mobile plans in Europe, but I just can't imagine paying my entire plan's price just for 1 GB.

Cell phone plans in Canada are a joke. I pay around $80CAD a month and I get 10gig data, no ability to buy more once I run out either (only my carrier does this though, most you can buy per gig after you run out, but it's extremely expensive) - It's cheaper and better for me to get an ATT sim from the US and use it in Canada (and that's indeed what i've done).

I've got a Rogers 50GB 'Unlimited' plan, with the phone financing I'm paying just north of $175/mo - when you approx the 'max-speed limit' they send you a text offering 3GB for $10, or 10GB for $30, just reply A or B and it'll automatically go on your plan on your month. There's no limit to the number of times you can do this, but it's a little sickening paying that much money for such little data.

I should do that, I just moved back to Canada having been gone for a very long time, so I don't have credit here - it was way easier to go on a bell prepaid plan. Wait till the europeans heads exploding see our prepaid plans.. haaaah....

Do you find you go through that much data? Do you do a lot of tethering?

I have been quite happy with my grandfathered 6gb for $30 plan from Freedom Mobile. Their currently available plans aren't so bad either. In the past they have had poor signal compared to Rogers but these days it's fine for me in Toronto.

For example you might want to consider their current 10GB for $40 plan here: https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/plans?planSku=Freedom%202... (note there are some conditions to get the full 10GB of data)

Agreed, thought I think you're in a special sort of hell. I'm on Bell and I'm at $75 / 20GB "Unlimited". After the 20GB I'm reduced down to 512KB/s so I never actually get cut off or a huge additional charge.

Yikes. Even in Germany, which is probably the most expensive EU country for mobile plans (yay...), and using the most expensive carrier (Telekom DE), it's €39.99 (CA$58) for 6GB, €49.95 (CA$73) for 12GB, €59.95 (CA$88) for 24GB, and Unlimited for €84.95 (CA$125). Plus you can get additional SIM cards (for an Apple Watch or an iPad, for example) for €4.95 (CA$7.27)/month.

In Japan 3GB/month is about 15 USD so it's not that much cheaper. There are usually "unlimited like" plans for 40/50 USD.

Is that 4G?

Mint Mobile in US is $15/4GB/mo , which is plenty for everything except extensive video chat/streaming movies.

Your deal seems far better than all the plans mentioned here:

https://prepaid-data-sim-card.fandom.com/wiki/Netherlands

There is always a difference in price between a prepaid SIM and a monthly contract with some minimum period.

Yeah that's 4G in NL and in the rest of the EU

In Italy I get 30 GB/mo at 5€, we are doing exceptionally fine in this department.

> For reference, I'm paying about $23/month for unlimited everything in NL.

It’s easier and cheaper to provide cellular service to dense populations like NL.

The population density of NL is over 100X more dense than Canada. Of course, once you exclude the largely uninhabited areas of Canada the difference isn’t as large, but it’s still significantly more costly to build cellular infrastructure across large and spread out places like Canada and the United States than smaller, densely populated places like NL.

Population density in Finland is pretty low and we get unlimited data for about $25/month.

> Population density in Finland is pretty low and we get unlimited data for about $25/month.

Finland population density: 18 per km^2

Canada population density: 4 per km^2

Population density doesn't explain everything, but it's a big factor.

It would make more sense to compare population density over that fraction of each country which has any coverage at all.

That would be harder, of course.

I understand why people say "Canada's population density is low that's why prices are high", but in practice only a very small fraction of the country is inhabited so it really just sound like a talking point and not a genuine issue.

Yeah, do you even get cellular signal in these remote areas? If not it definitely shouldn't be taken into account.

We've had providers pop up that have only served the major cities, where people would get a lower fee but have roaming if they go basically anywhere outside the ultra-dense areas. The rates were still astronomical compared to many European countries.

Providers in Canada are a cartel in every definition of the word. The three major cartel members can "compete" in a province and amazingly all have identically bad pricing and policies. Then they go to Quebec or Manitoba (or maybe it was Saskatchewan?) where there is a location-specific alternative and their pricing is significantly better.

Having said all of that, I should be fair and note that some of the providers have "infinity plans" now. So if you got a Rogers 5GB plan and have used 5GB by day one, you still have free data for the rest of the month at a speed of 512Kbps (again, amazingly all three of the major providers have identical policies). Which is still an entirely workable speed for a lot of things.

Oh wow you're right, I checked Rogers where the price is 90 CAD for 25GB in most provinces, and 75 CAD in Quebec. The exact same price as Videotron (which I suppose is the alternative you were talking about)

For perspective:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Collines-de-l%27Outaouai...

The county I live in, is 2200 sq km, with a population density of 24/sq km. This is in Quebec, at 1.5M sq km in size, and beside one of the largest metro areas in Canada, the National Capital Region of Ottawa and Gatineau, 5th or 6th largest.

NL is 423/sq km density, 20x. It is only 40000sq km, or about 18x larger than my county.

Quebec is 35x larger, Canada 230? 240 times larger.

Further point, my municipality is in a populous province, and effectively a suburb of the nations capital.

Lots of places have far lower population densities, and we have parks, and counties larger than the Netherlands.

Lots more area to cover, for sure.

The legal structure around telecoms in Canada also requires providers to provide at least phone service everywhere, so margins have to be extremely high in the dense areas to make up for the unprofitability of servicing remote areas.

UK here, I pay £25pm for unlimited data that I use in a 5G router, speeds top out at 240Mbps

I pay aprox $8/3GB for data in Argentina, which is OK considered most of the time I'm using wifi at home (and I usually don't consume media if I am outside). Also, companies here offer Whatsapp (including media) without cost, that means it doesnt consume your data (so your dat consumption only applies against YouTube, Spotify, browsing, etc...)

France isn't bad also, right know I have a plan with 150gb for 20€, and 50gb abroad (roaming) which includes US. I think there are better plans but I've chosen this one also because I'm planning to move to the US and I'd like to test if keeping this plan would be a cheaper viable alternative to local contracts.

Similarly in Ireland, I'm paying €20/month (prepaid) for "unlimited" (T&Cs: 30gb) data. Even including the cost of my purchased outright phone amortised over the expected lifecycle (€450/36 months) leads to €32.50/month.

Bill pay plans end up way worse on the low end though. The cheapest bill pay plan from my provider is €40/month, only includes phones that are €30 outright, and comes with 20gb of data. A year or two ago it would have been €30/month with only 1gb of data included.

I pay $44 per month for unlimited data/phone in US/Canada/Mexico with ATT Unlimited Plus Multiline. But that is because I have 6 people in my family plan. An individual with my plan would be paying $133 per month.

Also, I assume mobile networks are doing heavy QoS when towers get congested, where people who result in more profit for the mobile network get higher priority/more bandwidth.

And that's on top of the actual service, which is $35/mo for 2 lines.

It still ends up cheaper than our previous unlimited plan because we just make sure to use Wifi whenever possible.

Fi has an unlimited plan, but it costs more and it doesn't include roaming (outside of country) data.

We've got a huge credit because we got deals on a couple expensive phones, but after that credit runs out (in like a year, I think) we'll probably re-evaluate.

Do you actually get unlimited data? In the US, we have "unlimited" plans that are only "unlimited" until you hit the limit of a few GB per month. After that, I can still technically get data, but at extremely limited speeds.

It always seemed like calling it "unlimited" was just boldly lying, especially when the limits are there in the fine print.

Yes, in the UK I get real unlimited 5G for £30 a month ($40)

Yes. The fair-use policy is 4GB/day, but you can get an extra 1GB of data an unlimited number of times (with a manual action, to avoid abuse).

The policy makes sense to me.

I'm in HK and I pay HK$150 ($19) for 20GB full speed, unlimited fair usage policy (capped at around 50Mbit/s)

In the UK, my provider (O2) offer unlimited data but will "move you to a more suitable plan" if you tether more than 12 devices and/or use more than 650GB in a month.

Yeah the mobile data price in NA is insane.

I will be honest, it usually isn't too bad when I am in my work-home routine due to having Wi-Fi in most of places, but becomes quite obvious (and painful) once I travel.

It seems expensive at first sight, but the $10/GB are world-wide, and limited to $60 per month.

It's not something I would recommend as a substitute for wifi, but definitely worth it if you travel to multiple countries, and don't want to deal with getting and/or swapping sims at every destination.

Mint mobile in the US is $30/month for unlimited everything which is a bit more but still not terrible.

They also seem to use the <total amount paid> divided by <total amount of data used> rather than the marginal cost of downloading a single MB. For example, with 3 lines, my family uses 1-2GB of data per month and we pay around $40. That would imply a price of $20/GB using their model, despite the fact that if we were to use 1GB more we'd only pay $5 more.

What about https://old.reddit.com/ ? I find the mobile version of the site unusable as it’s an infinite scroll that forces you into the app to see any restricted content (which can include some mundane topics). The previous version of the site is far more useable, even on mobile.

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