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Comment by albertgoeswoof | Hacker News Reader

That’s only a problem in countries with poor network infrastructure, most developed countries have unlimited data plans at reasonable costs

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> That’s only a problem in countries with poor network infrastructure, most developed countries have unlimited data plans at reasonable costs

This is false, I live in Western Europe. Data cap is 50GB for a 30€ plan. This is farcry from "unlimited data plan" and there is 4G everywhere.

I'm a pretty heavy mobile user and my Safari is reporting 1.9gb used last month (a travel month where I was on 5G most of the time). The biggest user wasn't web content, but apps like Spotify that used 5.5gb in the month. Even if web/Safari uses a lot of data, at the end of the day if you stream rich content like videos or audio, that will always outpace web content. So if a mobile plan with a data cap can't support web content then there's no hope of streaming Netflix...

50 GB is effectively unlimited though, and for incredibly cheap. I would have to really try to use that much data on my phone. I have a 20 GB plan in Canada for much more than that, and have never exceeded 10 GB of usage. Up until about 3 years ago, I had a 500 MB plan for the same price, and still got on fine.

I'm living fine with a 3GB data plan (yes 3, not 30). It's only problematic if using tethering otherwise I have hard time understanding how people can consume more data just by browsing the web. Too much adult movies maybe?

1.5Gb here. I can self-adjust that month by month. I had more but I down-regulated it since I wasn't using it. It was a waste of money.

Sitting there streaming video content is a nonstarter just from a battery life point of view alone; I wouldn't do it even on Wi-Fi.

Speaking of which, 1.5Gb is enough that I don't bother looking for Wi-Fi hotspots.

The mobile plan is such that if it goes over the cap, it will just stop, rather than incurring extra charges. So until it stops, why would you mess with Wi-Fi.

Behaviour changes based on perceived availability of resources. I have "true" unlimited now - 100GB cap of 5G data. I have disabled all data savers. I stream music lossless. I backup photos asap instead of waiting for wifi. I don't even watch videos like some people do - Netflix on train is common - nor do I use tethering. I still hit 10-15GB a month regularly now. I used to be fine with just 3GB just a few months ago.

Not true in Australia

Again as the OP said, “ That’s only a problem in countries with poor network infrastructure”.

Australia is a victim of its geography. (Plus last I heard the National fiber backbone didn’t go as planned either). I’m would expect a high bandwidth wired backbone is required to support scaling up mobile data throughput.

Still not true and I live in Western Europe. Data cap is 50GB for a 30€ plan. This is farcry from "unlimited data plan".

Whilst Australia's NBN rollout was plagued with problems, in the end I would say it did go as planned - the design, as implemented, was intended to be crap. It was outdated when it was conceived, and could not possibly serve the country for the next thirty years as it claimed.

Or for poor residents of developed countries.

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