Re:The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
by ImaCake on Sunday August 23, 2020 @03:58AM
(#24250365)
I would suspect genuine regulated competition is the correct answer here (as you spell out). This is in contrast to the monopolies and corruption seen elsewhere. The customer service is still horrible, and NBN remains a disaster.
Re:The cost of 1GB of mobile data in 228 countries (Feb 2020)
by nl on Sunday August 23, 2020 @06:07AM
(#24250859)
Customer service is an interesting one.
The independent ISPs (especially Internode and iiNet) had excellent reputations for customer service until they were all taken over by TPG.
Nowadays Aussie Broadband has a pretty good reputation and interestingly has basically followed the same model: not always the absolute cheapest, but competes on benchmarks like speed, and with an engineering-heavy management team.
It took a long time to force this, but aggressive competition by regional ISPs (especially Internode and iiNet) forced Telstra to allow access to their ADSL network, and once that was in these and other companies used similar tactics to force open other markets.
Optus aggressively used MVNOs to build market share in mobile markets, and while Telstra still charges a premium the generally decent quality Optus network has kept a cap on how much additional they can charge.