Hacker News Reader

Comment by ybalkind | Hacker News Reader

"people do need to realise that a lot of Africa has very good 2G/3G coverage"

This true, but the price is prohibitive. Most cell phone users in Africa are on prepaid mobile services which charge the equivalent of 20 US cents per MB for 2G/3G data. This is a lot of money for the average 3rd world cell phone user.

View on HN

Kenya has pretty good rates for prepaid data, approx 1 US cent per MB if you buy a 500Mb bundle:

http://www.safaricom.co.ke/personal/internet/data-plans/prep...

500KSH for the 500Mb bundle, current FX rate is 90KSH/USD. Even the smallest bundle, 4Mb, is hardly more expensive per MD, at only 5 KSH (5.6 cents).

Are these prices unrepresentative of other African countries?

That bundle price in Kenya is pretty good by African Standards, but I do not think its representative. And even if it is, the masses do not have 5$ to put towards data bundles (bare in mind that they also have to buy airtime bundles just to use voice and SMS), so they end up paying the out-of-bundle data rates, which are about 20 times higher than the in-bundle rates.

God damn I just "topped up" my paltry 1GB per month in the UK at a cost almost twice that.

I don't care if information wants to be free, but I want my bandwidth to be free :-)

Edit: more seriously is control over the bandwidth usage. I notice my phone does a lot of background work that I either don't have control over or might do but is so diffuse to control I cannot be bothered. A few tens of dollars a month is annoying but it's not making me choose between food or bandwidth as it might in other areas.

I would hope that phones like the locked down android become more widespread or some other approach (can you write an app that controls other apps bandwidth?)

1c/MB is a huge price even for me in a western country. For me, it's between $1k and $2k a month!

For Africans the cost is even higher.

You probably wouldn't use nearly as much data if the speeds were only 2G/3G.

Was in Senegal a few years ago, frequently bought 100MB for 5,000CFA (about $10). At least that's what I remember. Is Orange just cheaper or is that about right?

Don't know about the rest of Africa, but in Cape Verde I was paying 15 euros for 5 gigabytes of 3G bandwidth. I was buying two of those cards per month on average, which was on par with an internet bill in the US or in Europe.

Except, corrected for average purchasing power in Cape Verde, that's about 10 times more expensive.

On par with an internet bill that provides far more than 10GB of data. I get 300GB for that price for example, and anything I transfer at night doesn't count towards that cap.

But you're getting that bandwidth in Africa, so honestly that's not bad. Not really a fair and equal comparison...

But the claim was the Africa doesn't need better internet because they have 2g/3g. Go ask anyone in Africa if they wish they had more bandwidth, more data, and lower prices.

Datapoint: I am in Tanzania. I pay 20k TSH per month for 800Mb of 3/4G data, and more talk time and SMS that I will ever need.

(That's about 10USD)

In Portugal we have prepaid prices of €1.25 for 30MB and €1/hr for 2G/3G. I still find it insanely expensive.

EDIT: Those 30MB are only valid for 24hrs max. As soon as midnight comes, you have to pay more €1.25 to get another 30MB valid until the end of the day.

Unless you really only need 30MB or less, you're better off getting the 200MB prepaid package for €2.9, which isn't nearly as bad in €/MB.

200MB... like that lasts a month. After you spend the 200MB you'll have to pay €1.25 for 30MB, valid only until midnight of the same day. There's no paying €2.9 for 200MB more. Nuances...

$200/gb of bandwidth is expensive for anybody!

When i was in Zimbabwe (5 Years ago) the biggest prepaid refill card you could buy was around 1$. (That was enough for a several minutes call back to Europe.) If you wanted more you had to buy several refill cards.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com