The top 10 countries where mobile data is least affordable are all in Africa

A new report by Electronicshub has shown that the ten top countries where mobile data is least affordable globally are all in Africa. The report compared the cost of a 10 GB monthly mobile data plan over a year to the average annual income in each country and highlighted the countries where the cost of such a mobile plan would be higher than the average income.

The report ranked countries based on the local annual cost of a 10 GB monthly mobile data plan as a percentage of annual net national income per capita, as well as the local average annual cost of a monthly broadband package as a percentage of net national income per capita.

Reviewing data from Cable.co.uk and the World Bank, the report indicates that Zimbabwe has the worst value for data anywhere in the world as 10GB per month of mobile data costs about 356.60% of the average annual income during the year under consideration. Mobile data prices in Zimbabwe have soared since 2020 due to inflation, a devalued Zimbabwe dollar and rising running costs.

The average income in Zimbabwe is also 3.76 times more than that of the second-placed country, the Central African Republic, but the data plan is more than four times as expensive.

Similar: Here is how much 1GB of data costs in Africa’s top 10 economies

Surprisingly, Romania has the cheapest mobile data cost globally

The cheapest broadband markets are a mix of European and Asian territories. The cheapest of all the studied countries globally is Romania, where broadband costs just $0.01 per Mbps. As long ago as 2015, tests showed the average download speed in Romania to be 60 Mbps, way ahead of America’s 28.9 Mbps.

Romania has the best value for broadband anywhere in the world when data prices are compared to local income (0.74%) or by cost vs. speed ($0.01 per Mbps of download speed). The main reason for Romania’s fast, cheap internet is that small community hubs answered the call for connectivity before the national telecommunications company.

According to the report, local network operators, often based in internet cafes, shared fast connections over short distances using overhead cables. As a result, bigger internet companies have to compete with these speeds and prices if they are going to be profitable.

Similarly, in the U.S., a 10GB data plan costs 1.22% of the average income, making it more affordable than two-thirds of other countries.

The U.S. (1.22%) has the 19^th most affordable internet compared to average local income. This puts it just behind the UK (1.14%), Italy (1.16%) and France (1.17%). However, researchers have found that users in lower-income areas of the U.S. have less access to cheaper broadband deals.

The average cost of network vs speed

The report also ranked countries based on the ratio of the average cost of network bandwidth in megabits per second to average download speed.

The most expensive internet territories by speed are the African countries of Burundi ($159.15) Eritrea ($338.15) and the remote Marshall Islands ($142.88) in the Pacific. Eritrea is a repressive one-party state, and as of 2019, internet penetration was just above 1%. The country has no privately owned media, and communications are tightly restricted.

The report also compared the cost of an annual broadband plan to each country’s average income. Romania again comes out with the best value (thanks to its independent local hubs). In Romania, a year of broadband costs 0.74% of the average income.

Most other high-value countries, including Sweden, Singapore and Denmark have high wages to balance their high broadband costs. However, there are some major discrepancies in data prices between some countries within the same region. For instance, the price of broadband in Sweden is 6.4 times more expensive than in Kazakhstan with a 0.93% ratio.

This is because internet access is primarily controlled by the state in Kazakhstan and is not in Sweden. This is the reason the government of Kazakhstan can completely shut down access during civil unrest in 2022.

In sum

The report indicates that internet access is largely a question of governmental will or market-driven commercial interests, depending on where users live.

As the surprising example of Romania and its cheap, fast community broadband hubs demonstrates, as the communication network of the people, it is in the hands of the people that the internet is most powerful.