from Hacker News

In Finland the average amount of data transferred per SIM card is 17.3GB/month

by caiobegotti on 10/11/20, 11:20 PM with 184 comments

• by kace91 on 10/12/20, 12:17 AM

  I've got unlimited mobile data for a great price in spain as well. Honestly, I hope the us catches up at some point because software still doesn't even consider it an option - I have to actively fight all my settings so I can get updates, backups, streaming at high quality and the like because the OS considers they should always be done on wifi.

  Sometimes, the situation has been so absurd that I've had to use the share Network function with a friend's phone to fool my phone into believing I'm on wifi so I could download an update.

• by devxpy on 10/12/20, 12:03 AM

  > Over here, unlimited mobile data means unlimited mobile data.

  This. Although India has the cheapest data next to Finland, the ground reality is quite different.

  I tried using 4G as my primary internet connection after COVID, and I got frustrated by "hidden" limits and random throttling from the ISP - ended up getting a fiber line.

  The 4G modem was a complete waste of money.

• by jlokier on 10/12/20, 2:02 AM

  UK here. I pay £20/month (USD $26) for unlimited data, voice and SMS.

  I have two such SIMs, one for the home router (because it's cheaper and faster than FTTC) and another for my phone.

  Usage varies, but on a busy month the home SIM will see 100-300 GB, mostly for Netflix. The phone SIM sees about 10-30 GB.

  Speed varies by time of day, but at peak it's 90 Mbit/s down, 20 Mbit/s up. At the slowest times of day it drops to about 8 Mbit/s down. The phone is faster than the router, so I've occasionally switched to using the phone to download something large.

  Last time I checked, there was technically a cap on the monthly data of 3 TB. For a while they also limited tethering to 30 MB, i.e. using the phone as a wifi hotspot, and then (if they detected it) you could theoretically be charged a lot for tethered data over that cap. But they officially removed that restriction a few years ago.

  The links are a bit unreliable. But the FTTC connection I had before was more unreliable, and more than twice the price. The FTTC connection before that was nearly three times the price (gouging - it started out cheaper than quietly kept increasing a lot). And if I move home, I can take my link with me now, instead of being tied into a 12 month contract at a fixed location.

• by mortenjorck on 10/12/20, 1:44 AM

  The left side of the chart is a surprising cohort, hardly the usual suspects when it comes to being behind the curve. There’s the US, sure, but it’s actually slightly ahead of Norway, and significantly ahead of both Canada and Japan!

  You have two Scandinavian countries on opposite ends of the spectrum, two east Asian countries on opposite ends, and even two countries with significantly large landmass (look at Russia only two spots short of Korea). What gives?

• by SRTP on 10/12/20, 1:17 AM

  I live in Singapore and estimate my monthly data usage is around 20 GB / mo.

  I pay about 15 USD/mo.

• by AlchemistCamp on 10/12/20, 1:13 AM

  As a regular video creator and consumer who tethers mobile data, I'm using about 100GB/month.

  My total mobile bill is 700 Taiwan dollars a month, which is about 25 USD.

• by achempion on 10/12/20, 6:15 AM

  In Russia I pay $2 for 100 min + 11GB of traffic which I never use (less than 1GB each month) because of WFH.

  It'll be around $3 for unlimited traffic though.

• by alex_young on 10/12/20, 12:30 AM

  I’d love to see Switzerland’s avg usage.

  For $30 a month true unlimited where you just don’t even think about data transfer.

  Speeds in the 100 MB/s range most of the time and people seem to just take it for granted.

• by culturestate on 10/12/20, 12:15 AM

  I moved recently and had to tether for ~a week while my ftth was being relocated - ended up using around 80GB of data in that time. Normally I use less than 6GB per month.

  I would be curious to see how different mobility patterns in different places (e.g. I live in Singapore, where commutes are naturally short) affect mobile data usage vs. other more obvious factors like home internet penetration.

  It feels like I use much more data when I'm back in the US or working on site, even if I have a fixed base to work at, just because of the amount of time I spend moving around.

• by alliao on 10/12/20, 1:45 AM

  New Zealand reporting in here, the cheapest plan for unlimited mobile data is around 20 USD/month, but you need 4 people committed together to get such rate. A true independent unlimited mobile connection will set you back $45 USD or so with first 40GB at full speed.

  Realistically speaking the 20USD/month is already quite reasonable, if world as it was pre-COVID I might coerce some friends and family to join the plan with me.

  But I really would prefer 25 USD no strings attached.

• by findthewords on 10/12/20, 12:05 AM

  Also, no limits on tethering (hotspot wifi).

• by JumpCrisscross on 10/12/20, 12:00 AM

  Is home internet common in Finland? Or does everything connect to the cellular network?

• by blueblisters on 10/12/20, 5:19 AM

  What drives the high cellular prices in the United States? Is it regulation? Infrastructure cost? Lack of competition?

  I don't buy the lack of competition argument honestly. Cellular data is a commodity. Cell towers are not exactly a utility to the extent that optical fiber/coax is. If there was margin to be exploited, capital would have flowed in to take advantage. But it's likely that the risk adjusted return in the cellular business is already too low to attract more players and drive down costs without a significant technology moat.

• by torgian on 10/12/20, 1:37 AM

  I’m glad I live in taiwan now. Back in the states my internet sucked, both mobile and home.

  Now I use my phone as a mobile hotspot and do my work on it. I use about 30 or 40 gigs a month when I’m not at home.

• by fierarul on 10/12/20, 6:30 AM

  It's a good thing that with EU's "Roam Like at Home" people from Finland can go transfer those 17GB/month in any other EU country, but people from Romania saw the introduction of "national" SIM cards which leave you literally stranded (no signal) when crossing the border. Better roaming for me but not for thee.

• by nico42 on 10/12/20, 7:29 AM

  I'm not sure we should see unlimited 4G plans as a positive. 4G consumes a lot more enregy than Wifi for the same bandwidth, so usage of Wifi should be encouraged when possible.

  (https://whatis5g.info/energy-consumption/)

• by jdofaz on 10/12/20, 2:58 AM

  I'm on the T-Mobile Connect 2GB plan with unlimited talk and text. I was paying $50 a month for basically the same plan but thanks to one of the Sprint/T-Mobile merger conditions they have to offer it for $15 now.

  I don't like to watch video on my phone, I almost never hit the 2GB limit unless I try.

• by sfmike on 10/12/20, 6:02 AM

  In Taiwan, pay about 1000TWD or 33 USD. for the 80mbs unlimited data 30 day plan(no contract). Never throttled always fast even when in far away tea mountains like Alishan. If I took contract its 700 or 23 usd/month. Unlimited meaning yes you could download 24/7 it won't cap.

• by durnygbur on 10/12/20, 6:26 AM

  Sweet. What percentage of this is ad and analytics networks? YouTube ads? Mobile apps love to binge on data.

• by readams on 10/12/20, 2:12 AM

  I have some hope that Amazon and SpaceX will force prices to go down for at least home internet by bypassing the ISP monopolies. Might be a while though if ever. Google Fiber has sadly fizzled out because of the anticompetitive practices of the local monopolies.

• by z2 on 10/12/20, 1:33 AM

  That cost per GB chart is interesting--how can Portugal be 5x more expensive than Spain, or Japan be (what looks like) 30x more expensive than Korea? Are there hidden subsidies or costs driving this or is it from infrastructure, policy, or historical reasons?

• by vaccinator on 10/11/20, 11:59 PM

  I average 2gb because I restrict myself since the rates I get are outreageous here in the US... I use wifi whenever I can to limit mobile usage (which is of course not included in the 2gb figure).

• by csours on 10/12/20, 1:28 AM

  Will neighborhood 5G change up the internet availability landscape in the US? I pay $70 bucks a month for cable internet which is oversubscribed and sucks in the evening.

• by gok on 10/12/20, 1:49 AM

  So judging by that graph, the median Finn pays way less than 1 euro per month for cell service?

• by ocdtrekkie on 10/12/20, 3:25 AM

  See, I just see that as wildly inefficient. Why do I need to stream videos on the go? If I listen to music, why wouldn't I have it locally?

  My usage is usually right around 1 GB a month, and I'm constantly on my phone, social media, browsing, etc.

• by econcon on 10/12/20, 12:13 AM

  Finland is a tiny developed country it probably has good fiber or coax penetration both of which offer better latency than 4g.

  So what gives? Its similar to my usage pattern, only time I use mobile internet is when I am out of WiFi range