Internet Consumption and Cost – Who Wins?

by Ralph Eck | Jul 12, 2013

Everyone wants a bargain, even when it comes to the internet. But we also want huge amounts of bandwidth so we can download fast, watch streaming video and enjoy the experience to the hilt. There is nothing more annoying than getting onto the internet, keying up a movie or a music video and after 10 seconds that damn little spinning icon appears on your screen as you need to buffer before you can continue. And if it happens over and over it truly ruins the fun and we get frustrated and give up. So year by year our ISP’s pitch us to buy more and more bandwidth so that our user experience is continually fun, keeps us online and drives the national revenues around the globe. E-commerce sites thrive off of this ever escalating bandwidth consumption because then their sites build faster and sharper and you get to buy more and more of their stuff! Can you remember back to the days when you were happy to get off of dial up and actual experience the speed of 56 kbps? Well the internet dinosaurs have become extinct and the data jets are zooming around the globe. It seems there is no limit to how far and how fast the internet will go. So, who has the most bandwidth and who has the cheapest?

The answers will probably surprise you in some of the numbers we are about to share. No, the USA is not number 1 when it comes to either; internet penetration, internet speeds or internet pricing. Actually they are not even close. While the USA is doing well with a 78% internet penetration rate it is far behind countries like; Norway at 97%, Australia at 89%, South Korea at 82% and Japan at 80%. But then again, it is still way ahead of countries like; Russia at 47%, China at 40% and the Philippines at 32% and we should all feel sorry for poor India with just an 11% internet penetration rate.

The USA is not even near first when it comes to average speed per broadband user or in regards to the price per mbps….. but thankfully it is not the most expensive either.  The USA has an average of 4.8 mbps per users at a cost of $3.33 per mbps (the average user thus pays $15.98 monthly for his internet) while in Poland the average user has a speed of 7.5 mbps at a cost of $13 per mbps (for a monthly cost of $97.50).

But the overall winner of this speed and price race is Japan, with a whopping 61 mbps per customer and a measly cost of just 0.27 per mbps (a monthly cost of $16.47). The only question that still remains to be answered is, how fast will it get and how little will it cost? Nobody knows but it will be interesting to see.