Costs of bandwidth and mobile calls around the world

I meant to post about this some time back, but it got relegated to the back of the blog pile. Below is a comparison of the per megabit broadband charges for some of the world’s countries:

Broadband prices per megabit

1. South Korea $0.34
2. Sweden $0.65
3. Japan $0.70
4. Amsterdam (FttH 100/100) $1.39
5. France $1.68
6. Finland $2.85
7. Italy $3.45
8. Norway $4.14
9. Netherlands $4.42
10. Denmark $5.05
11. Iceland $5.13
12. Amsterdam (20/1 ADSL2+) $5.38
13. Germany $5.33
14. Austria $6.14
15. Belgium $6.68
16. UK $11.31
17. Portugal $11.80
18. Spain $12.79
19. Poland $13.33
20. Ireland $14.18
21. Luxembourg $18.97
22. Switzerland $22.28
23. China $23.18
24. Czech Republic $24.75
25. Singapore $28.63
26. Thailand $30.36
27. Greece $34.06
28. Sri Lanka $40.90
29. Philippines $43.62
30. Australia $45.33
31. Hungary $49.46
32. Slovakia $51.48
33. Pakistan $80.43
34. Malaysia $88.61
35. India $88.61
36. Turkey $118.83
37. Myanmar $261.75
38. Fiji $354.45
39. Indonesia $2,453.87

Link

No surprises about South Korea, Sweden and Japan topping the list or bandwidth in Pakistan being so expensive, but it is interesting that countries like Malaysia and India, that claim some of the fastest technological growth in the world, are even more expensive.

Looking at the heading, you may also be expecting such a list for mobile call charges, but this is actually something I myself am searching for. If anyone has managed to find such a list or has compiled one, please do share.

The thing I want to see is where Pakistan stands when it comes to cellular tariffs. With so much cutthroat competition among giant mobile operators, local call charges have fallen dramatically during the last few years. In this area at least, it could well be one of the world’s least expensive places to use a mobile.

As far as broadband is concerned, the costs in Pakistan are likely to drop very fast once the competition really heats up (it soon will). On top of that, technologies like WiMax are being deployed left and right and this could soon make it one of the best places to own a laptop.