If you’ve experienced any kind of internet outage in recent times, you will no doubt have found yourself wondering how we managed without it for so many years. With the way the world has changed over the last two decades, we are now at a point in time where broadband seems a necessity almost up there with water and electricity.
Broadband services improve ease of communicate, access to news and services, and general quality of life, but in which countries are they most affordable?
Tech price comparison website Cable.co.uk has gathered data on the price of broadband in 195 countries all over the world. This has been condensed into an interactive map in which nations are colour coded according to the cost of their broadband deals. For consistency, Cable researchers have taken the monthly price advertised in the relevant currency, then converted it to US dollars.
The study found that the cheapest broadband is available in Ukraine, where deals average at just $5 per month. Its broadband speed of 11.28Mbs (megabits per second) is relatively fast too, although slower than that of neighbouring Russia, which is 13.51Mbs and the world’s fourth cheapest at $9.77 per month.
Sri Lanka and Iran come second and third respectively, although Iran is let down by its sluggish 2.2Mbs connection speed. Otherwise, the map largely shows a block of East European and former Soviet states boasting the most affordable broadband offerings, with Belarus, Moldova, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia and Kazakhstan all making the top 20.
At the other end of the scale, the most tedious country in which to use broadband appears to be the West African nation of Mauritania, where the average fee equating to $786.18 is the most expensive in the world and still only gets the payer a paltry average speed of 0.7Mbs. Papua New Guinea ($571.67), Namibia ($383.83), Laos ($239.25) and Paraguay ($210.83) are the other countries with the heftiest broadband deals.
Cable describes the UK as performing “surprisingly well”, with an average fee of $39.58 (£30.30). This puts it a fairly ordinary 61st cheapest in the world, but it should be noted that among Western European nations, where earnings are generally higher and broadband services better, it is the fifth highest.
The UK’s cost per megabit rate is not so good at $1.19 though, putting it 21st out of the 29 analysed Western European nations. Indeed, earlier this year, we wrote about a previous Cable study that showed UK broadband speeds to lag behind those of several less developed states.
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