Shockingly to some, the level of network development, especially wireless network, is not the same everywhere. Even population density varies greatly. I just checked our operators, the cheapest mobile plan comes at 1 GiB of data per month. Prices climb really fast after that, making 10-15 GiB (or more) too expensive for many, though you can get 5 GiB/mo subsidized for cheap if you have some sort of disability.

Where are you and how much do you pay?

Cheapest plan here in Romania is 75 GB for 2 euro/month, then the speed is limited to 1 Mbps.

Speed isn’t great, but that’s about 25% of “full speed” use over the course of a month, 600k seconds. Considering sleep is about 30% of a month as well, and assuming you’re not on a phone all day while working, it might be hard to hit that cap. Speed isn’t great, to reiterate. The cost is 30x cheaper than what I pay, and my speed, at my house, is 10mbps. No cap, but I use like 5gb/month.

Or am I way off and you hit the cap every month?

I believe parent meant that 1 mbps is the speed AFTER you hit 75 GB per month.

Oh wow, that's an insane deal.

Yes, that what I meant. The 75 GB are unlimited, "best effort". When the 75 GB are consumed, speed is limited to 1 Mbps with no other limit or cost.

More datapoints in USD (Chile) from checking various companies:

150GB-200GB ~15 USD

400GB-450GB ~19-20 USD

Unlimited (without throttling) ~21-27 USD

This is the price after the new client ~20% discount expires (generally 6 months). The unlimited and higher tier usually include stuff like Amazon Prime Videos subscriptions, local IPTV or roaming gigs. All plans obviously include calls and texting.

Data point: I'm in the US on an old pre-paid plan that gets me 5GB per month at fast speed, dropping down to unlimited "2G" speed after that cap is hit, which I've done only twice in the past 12 years. $30 per month, and I always "bring my own device" (ie, I only buy unlocked phones, not through the carrier). I haven't shopped around for a while.

You should shop around! Some of the MVNOs are offering unlimited fast data at a similar price these days, and something similar to what you have now for cheaper.

I second this! I switched to mint recently. They are offering unlimited data including hotspot for $15/mo for up to a year if you prepay. I think then it goes to their standard rate which is $30/mo for unlimited, or $15/mo for 5gb.

Not sponsored or anything, just a happy customer.

Yeah I'm on Verizon (via their Visible MVNO) and its ~$23/mo for unlimited data. Zero complaints on coverage or speeds.

Visible here, as well. I've been paying $25.00 per month, flat (no extra fees/taxes) for years.

It's perhaps worth noting for others that there are 3 different tiers of service with Visible, ranging from $25 to $45 -- although all 3 are "unlimited."

(I can't tell the difference between them, myself, with my phone in my use.)

MVNO's for life. Weird how they haven't cannibalize their providers yet with such pricing.

They are often owned by the providers themselves.

Yeah, I feel like the major providers must be coasting on people who just dont bother looking into it and ares till on the same $100 plan they've been on forever (this was me until recently) and people who really want new flagship phones all the time but can't afford them outright, so they finance with a postpaid plan.

I'm in WA - I pay $20/mo for 15GB on Mint Mobile. I used to do $15/mo for 5GB but kept sometimes bumping into it (tethering and stuff) so I just bit the bullet and upgraded.

USA, paying $15/month for the cheapest T-Mobile plan. I only use a few hundred MB per month typically.

I got Connect by T-Mobile a few years ago when it was $10/mo prepaid ($11.03 with tax), and I am grandfathered in. It has a hard cap of 1GB/mo, then nothing. Then I got Hello Helium with a physical SIM on my exercise phone (out in the rain, at the gym) and it is completely free with ... wait for it ... 3GB/mo of data. Go figure. The Hello Helium app used to require location permission on at all times, but they eliminated that.

I always think by law any ISP that advertises speed and a has a cap must express the cap in terms of the advertised speed.

So telcos can advertise "Up to 200Mbps" for their package.

But then if they have a 2GB cap, they also need to say, "Caps at 80 seconds of usage".

Because that's what you're paying for at that speed, 80 seconds of usage per month.

Sure, you're not always (or indeed never) doing 200Mbps, but then you're not getting the speed you paid for.

i don't think that makes sense, most connections you make never reach 200Mbps because they don't need to

That's kind of my point, ISPs use that max speed in their advertising when it isn't really relevant, especially if it hits your cap in a minute or two.

It is relevant, though. I have 1.2 Gbps down with a 2 TB monthly cap. I've never hit the monthly cap even once, but by your standard I have "1.2 Gbps down for 3 hours, 42 minutes".

But that doesn't change the reality that it matters to me that a 20 GB video that a friend took at my wedding downloads in just 2 minutes rather than the ~30 minutes it would take if I had a 100 Mbps connection.

Right, but 3+ hours of top speed per month is a lot, 80 seconds isn't.

Your cap is over 150 times that equivalent. If you had an 80 second hard cap, you couldn't even download that 20GB video.

1.2Gbps down but only 2TB cap? I hope that's really cheap since if I pay for that I'd expect to do stuff like downloading LLMs, etc, all the time.

I imagine they are not from USA. But it's a surprisingly low plan, even considering that