An Analysis Of Internet And Mobile Around The World

Connecting people around the world through a common passion

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In June of 2015, we asked you “How Does Your Location Affect Your Life As A Power User?”. In the days that followed, members from all over the world shared their stories and experiences of mobile life across the globe and since then many of you have contacted us to tell yours. Allow me to introduce the true story of what it means to be a power user on this pale blue dot.

Index – Select a country to jump to that section

Africa & Oceania ^

Australia is a mixed bag. I’m not a power user, can’t afford to be. We have three main carriers, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. There are re-sellers of these carriers too, usually with a cut down service for the cheaper rates. Vodafone doesn’t have good infrastructure and the subscription uptake tends to outstrip hardware upgrades, so they are always well behind in coverage and reliability with too many users overloading the infrastructure. Where I live, they don’t even have Vodafone shops and are not a valid option. They are used mainly by people in major cities. Optus is always playing second fiddle to Telstra. They aren’t too bad but never match the coverage of Telstra (who were the government owner carrier). I personally use a reseller of Telstra service. I have an Aldi SIM. It uses a cut down part of the Telstra 3G network but has most of the coverage of Telstra.

Mobile services here are generally quite expensive, but competition is slowly improving costs, although with only three carriers, it’s never going to be a users market. If you consider yourself a power user here, Telstra is the only viable option but they are VERY expensive. 4G services are mostly only for large cities, although it is slowly spreading.

For handsets, most are available and If it’s not here we can easily buy online (although currency conversion kills the price). In general, the handsets are expensive here. A Samsung Galaxy S6 is around $1000 with higher models (like curved) over $1100 and iPhone is also very expensive. It still surprises me how many iSheep we have here despite this. Our market is overflowing with cheap rubbish handsets that are overpriced and under-performing. I resorted to buying an MTK based Chinese phone through ebay. It’s been a bit hit and miss, no updates means locked to Jellybean with minimal dev support for custom ROMs, so it is heavily modded to get more usability and slim down the resource load. We also have region lockout so often when I see something interesting here at XDA, then go to download from Google Play, I can’t. This is very frustrating. I assume it’s one reason Apple users stay with Apple … – RobboW

On Guam we have 3 major carriers. They are all GSM networks. One carrier has island-wide 4G (LTE) and the other two have HSPA+ island-wide with 4G in most northern cities and some down south. The speeds are pretty good with HSPA+ 15/3 Mbps and 4G 50/20 Mbps. Since last year, carriers have started switching from Unlimited Data plans to tiered plans. Before $80 could get you Unlimited Talk ,Text, and Data. Now with the new plans $80 can get you Unlimited Talk and Text and 5-10 GB of Data depending on the network. The phone selection is decent. We have Samsung, Apple, HTC, Motorola, but no LG. Most people have iPhone or Samsung flagships. While the low-end has a lot of BLUs. We get new phones about a month after their international launch. The price of an S6 is $299. An iPhone 6 16GB is $150. Since we are a US territory we can use most services including Netflix, Hulu, Google Play Music. Beats Music is not available right now, so I would assume Apple Music isn’t either.

Now on the Home internet side, there are 2 ISPs. One uses cable while the other uses ADSL, VDSL, and rolling out Fiber. Their Fiber plans are 25 Mbps for $55 when bundled with TV and Home Phone. And 50 Mbps for $65 when bundled. I have the 25 Mbps (unlimited usage) with TV and Phone for $166/month. The other ISP has up to 60 Mbps cable line (1TB data cap) for $225 when bundled with TV, Home Phone and Cell Phone with Unlimited Talk, Text and 5GB Data ($80 plan). Neither ISP throttles or blocks websites. – nflo671

Here in Bali there are no subsidized phones on the market, an iPhone 6 costs you about $950 unlocked. Most general consumers opt for Samsung or dual-SIM phones even at the cost of lower specs, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone using Nexus devices here. 4GB data plan costs you $10 although an Unlimited data plan is a joke with fair usage policy of 4GB, then you get capped to 64kbps until next month. Warranties exist, but sometimes you must fight your way through the “You must be the one who broke it” mentality. Most companies opt to trick people into waiting for repairs rather than replacements (even in manufacturing defect cases). Root is seen as ‘evil’ and no matter what, they always blame the users if you root even when you had a malfunctioning screen. Hardware warranties are 1 year, but the battery inside it lasts between 3 to 6 months.

Pirated apks are offered in almost all major retail shops (sometimes they insert an SD card bonus with pirated games inside. There are a massive amount of selfie sticks all over the place. There is a general lack of interest in developing ROMs here and we rarely get updates for phones other than Android One or Nexus users, my I9500 still stuck at 4.4.2 when rest had 5.0.1 we miss out on a huge amounts of services. – XERW

Likewise in Jakarta the story is similar, here superbonto shares his experience.

In Jakarta, signal reception everywhere is mostly a joke, you can get 3G, or even 4G in some areas but that’s it, no data traffic at all, you can only make calls and texts especially when you wander around rural areas. This leads to a massive battery drain upon travelling. The “root voids warranty” mentality is sunk deep in to people’s minds and as a result the developer community may not be as vast, whilst Android is looked down on compared to apple devices. There are few android tablets from global brands available here. Tablets are mostly used as a toddle’s toy, you can find some cheap $70 tablets with horrendous quality.

Music streaming services are quite limited, there is no Google Play Music or Spotify etc. The only music streaming I’ve ever used is Nokia’s Mix Radio (and the songs there were…. not my cup of tea) – superbonto

The only manufacturers that release their phones on time here are Samsung, Lg and Huawei. All though there are Sony and HTC retailers here. If you want to own a nexus device, a Motorola or even a Oneplus your only option is to import. there are also lots of Tecno phones here which are sold cheaply hence many people own them. Sony and HTC phones are viewed as for the rich. We have fast 3G internet and recently 4G was rolled out to the two main cities Nairobi and Mombasa though in some places upcountry its EDGE with no 3G. When I go to visit my parents I have to use 2G, it’s so frustrating. – Jrobah

Here in Libya, shipping is no problem but getting a credit card is quite a hassle. Only two banks offer visa cards and you need to wait a month for you to get it because they have to send your application to France to their partner bank/credit card company. Another problem is that it’s only valid for 1.5 years and then you have to go through the same process again. There is a company called Aramex that open 12 post-boxes for you in 12 different counties. When you pay for something online, you just give the seller one of those addresses. After they receive the package, it only takes 7 days at most for them to ship it here to Libya. Other shipping companies (FedEx, UPS…) work here as well but their services are not as good.

As for local sellers, There are many but when a new phone is launched, it will take 2-3 months for it to reach the international price (unless you’re prepared to pay 20-25% extra to get the phone in the same week of launch). For other electronics, there are lots of sellers and you can get a laptop/desktop/TV’s/DSLR cameras for the same international price (almost). But things are not looking good and it might get worse if the civil war reaches Tripoli. – AgEnT x19

3G coverage is limited, and the bandwidth is comically bad. 4G/LTE is in the same situation, except one order of magnitude worse. Wi-Fi availability is mostly restricted to large company offices, hotels and restaurants catering to non-native (or well-off) tourists, and private homes.We get most devices even before more developed countries sometimes, but with a 1/3200 and increasingly bad exchange rate with the US dollar, it’s safe to say that most of us are limited to low-to-mid range devices, or high-end devices from 5 years ago.

As for apps, many are unavailable here due to region-locking. For the apps that are available, local financial laws involve so much red tape that it is usually easier to just move abroad and buy from there instead (if remaining on the legal side of things is a concern of yours). The only good side? Attractive local and international call rates. – Franck P. Rabeson

New Zealand ^

We have some of the highest average speed LTE in the world but terribly low data caps. I have over 50 MB/s LTE where I live but a 4.5GB monthly cap and that is considered large for mobile. We have a very low population density and rugged terrain so mobile coverage is poor if you live too far from a town. National broadband speeds are good but being an island our international data transit is expensive and limited. For these reasons cloud storage is not an option at all for most mobile users and we tend to not trust it anyway. We have a lot of competition between providers, there are several hundred ISPs for a population of 4.5 million and 3 mobile networks with several more resellers. We are in the middle of a nationwide FTTH rollout that should cover over 75% of our population and our average speeds and data caps have been shooting up for the last couple of years. I’m pretty sure carrier locking is illegal here, along with a few other things like region locking. There is a fee for breaking phone contracts but you are free to leave and take the phone to another carrier. Carrier bloat is unheard of, usually you get a single removable app for account information that is actually useful.

Media services such as Play music, Netflix etc tend to be very late to arrive if they do at all, we have just got Netflix in the last couple of months, but it has about 1/8th the content of the US version. There are some downsides mostly with pricing and availability of services but on the whole we have it pretty good. – Aborto

3G is available in the big cities, but not everywhere. While in some places mobile networks don’t have coverage. We have 4 major network providers MTN, AIRTEL, GLOBALCOM (owned by a Nigerian) and ETISALAT. Calls are quite cheap, because there is competition, but no unlimited calls, we only have night-time calls to same network providers (MTN – MTN) (GLO – GLO) etc… with terms and conditions applied. SMS is the same price to other networks 4 Naira standard (some mobile plans could be less). Data is quite expensive, and most times you don’t get what you paid for. From network providers 1GB = 3000 Naira ($16), more data is subsidized as you buy. so we have 10GB for 10,000 Naira ($50.1). But Blackberry users OS7 below, get more than android users and iOS, they get 3GB for 1000 NAIRA ($5.10) with no valid reason. Smart Nigerians do find a way round the data difficulty, (I’m on unlimited data) and the internet speed varies with network providers, so far ETISALAT is still the fastest, where they have 3G coverage. but their plans are expensive.

Most phones get here early, but a little bit expensive (but most times it is cheaper to buy here, than importing to save you the stress but if you can deal with it, No Problem). We have mostly Mediatek phone users (Tecno, Infinix, Gionee, Solo, Itel, Samsung , Apple, Huawei, LG, Sony, Nokia etc. One can get an android phone for as low as ₦9500 ($50 approx.) I’ve not heard of any restrictions so far, we are allowed to use credit card, Paypal just got in, but not with full access. We do not have Netflix, but a VPN can help with that. We have broadband providers also, some claim it’s 4G, but a snail is faster than the speed they provide. We have warranties for most of the devices, I’m not sure about Idevices though. Apps can and should be on the Playstore, but we have few devs – Iammykhael

South Africa ^

South Africa here. Most smartphones here go for close to double their price in the US. No Google Play devices as well and usually a small selection of devices in general. And except for Samsung and Apple, product launches are typically three months later than elsewhere. Imports can be ludicrous here. The infrastructure of our mail system is so bad that they have considered shutting it down completely this year. Places like Amazon refused to ship to SA due to all the packages going missing (meanwhile they have opened up) but shipping rates are sometimes ridiculous (think about paying $800 shipping fee for something that costs $1000, and that is without tax and import duties).

Luckily we only get international versions of phones (unfortunately only Exynos flagship Samsung) and usually only have one storage option available (except for Apple devices). Data and call rates are somewhat steep, and without dedicated data bundles networks typically charge R2/MB and R2/min (about 0.17$) – Xdadevet

3G here is mostly unusable, it just doesn’t work in most locations. 4G / LTE is beginning to be available, but only in a couple of cities, but it’s still so unstable that is hardly of use. Data plans are going up almost each month! Smartphones usually come here late, when they are discarded from everywhere else (Blackberries are still used here!). The devices that do actually arrive (no iphones) usually are 2 to 4 times more expensive than everywhere else. 24 month locked devices sell more expensive than international unlocked devices sold elsewhere.

Netflix/Google Devices/YouNameIt (even many youtube videos) are out of our reach because the usual US/UK only policy, we still can’t purchase nor upload through Google Music, I can’t understand why! We can’t even buy US Dollars freely. – alex_herrero

Good phones are expensive here, the most expensive in the world, phones like Asus Zen5 or Moto G are fairly mainstream. Data plans are way too expensive. I work in IT with 6 others and only I have a monthly more than 1Gb plan. The problem is that it is too expensive even to those of us who love technology. 3G speeds are OK in my city but this can vary greatly. I can use both Google Music and Spotify with almost no issue. 4G seems to be great where there is coverage, since almost no one has 4G sets. If you use a phone to make calls you must have a dual sim (or more), since call to someone who is not the same cellphone network as you will be expensive.

Whatsapp is the only app you must have. Maybe with Facebook, to those who have more than 10MB of daily limit. You see more windows phone than Apple devices If you choose to import a device it will cost you 3 or 4 times the original price, take months in customs, and you will have no warranty. The exception is for Apple devices which are even more expensive than this. – aristofeles

Dreadllokz also gave his experiences from Brazil:

I’m from Brazil, and as you may know, its a BIG country! I’m a power user from Sao Paulo, and I have no problems with Internet Connection. 4G is fast enough but coverage is annoying. Home Fiber reaches 35Mb and that is good, I have no cap and can download every bluray and episodes I want! I have ADSL and Fiber at home and 4G on Cellphone, so I always have an Internet connection. Everything here is expensive, tech is really expensive. Cell plans are also really expensive, I have 6GB/month for about $20, but I have no sms, no calls, nothing, just internet, If I want to make a call, I’ll pay ~$0,50/minute. Since I mostly use Internet, its ok for me! PC Hardware, HT Hardware, Smartphones and Tablets here are crazy expensive. I use a LG G2 that is ok for my needs, I’m not going to get another Smartphone till this one breaks or gets slow. An S6 Edge 64Gb costs R$4K. I still use a Core2Duo as my PC, I use it for media and Internet, not good enough but can run Remux and Blurays from my HD and SSD just fine, so till it breaks not gonna change it either. PC and Console Gaming here are for the Rich, you need R$2K or R$7K to build a decent gaming PC, games and gear in general are crazy expensive, but for PC you’ve always got to torrent. It’s a great land, but taxes kills us! You need to be rich if you wanna go high-end here, from cars to smartphones to hardware in general! minimum wage here is @ $300! – Dreadllokz

Cellphones are very expensive (“el dólar a luca”, like we say here), however a lot of people have them with Motorola and Samsung being very popular. Old (new, with no use) cellphones almost never reduce their prices, but the new ones that arrive are very expensive.

You can’t buy apps or claim free books, movies and music in Play Store, without a credit card and not everyone has one here, no other payment methods. Cellphone plans are expensive too. There are 3 big carriers and several other small ones. Our phones are not carrier locked but we rarely get updates.

In cities there is always signal however in isolated places there isn’t any at all. – skrlet13

We recently had contracts eliminated so this mean no more subsidized phones. Prices are just a little bit higher but that’s mostly due to conversion rates. There is no unlimited data but monthly plans are ok, it’s about 60 USD for unlimited calls, text and 8GB of data. Updates don’t work here so you have to do it yourself. It’s good in general, the only complaint is the cost of the smartphones, but I guess that is a problem with the manufacturers rather than the country. Most of our major cities have LTE and it’s usually pretty good, although that is carrier dependent.

Services such as Netflix, Spotify and Google stuff work great here but some content is blocked, not much though. – rj.camargo

Costa Rica ^

The market here is full of Samsung and now Huawei, but we also can find Sony, LG and iPhones. New Phone models usually launches a couple of weeks after USA but are almost 100% more expensive than in the USA, fortunately it is easy for us to buy on Amazon and import it the Import fee is around $40. In case of warranty we can also return the phone to USA by mail. There are 3 main carriers, one of them is of the government (Kolbi) and right now is the one with best coverage. 3G plans are all unlimited with top speed of 5mb/s and 4G plans are with a top speed of 10mb/s but limited to 6GB. It cost is $12 every 3 months. Due to the mountains, the terrain and forest we use the 1800 band (Kolbi) and there is coverage in 80% of the country. But tethering is free.

We do not have access to some apps like Hulu or Paypal (this only works with PCs), but we are ok with Google Music, Spotify and Netflix even if the content of Netflix is limited – Dany

In regards to Ecuador I think the Mobile market has stepped down. There are 3 carriers down here, Claro, Movistar (Telefónica) and the state-owned CNT. About 75% of the population is on Claro, so having a number there is convenient for the phone calls, but not data. Since 2008 (I think) Claro removed the unlimited data plan and instead offers 4GB of data at USD$55. The mobile coverage is highly dependant on the carrier, with Claro being at least 2G almost everywhere (You can make calls near the Chimborazo using Claro) and Movistar has much less of a network, while CNT coverage is a hit and miss although being the very first operator offering LTE in Ecuador. The state-owned CNT have better data plans going to offer 2GB at USD$9,99 with unlimited social networks and the service is decent.

Most of the phones here are bought unlocked and carrier-independant because of the extremely high costs of paying a phone and a plan within a basic salary of $354. Since 2012, there’s a restriction on the customs office concerning the import of cellphones using courier services that made almost half the offers of cellphones, so It’s been an awful deceleration of the mobile market here in Ecuador. So being a power user as in USA or some parts of Europe, it’s like a dream here.

While I personally don’t use Netflix or any other credit-card dependant service (Google Play, Spotify, etc.) I have noted that only the upper part of the economical mid-class and young people use those services, mostly because of fear of overusing a credit card. – Piero512

There is no Google hardware store here, if we want it we get it imported or through other retailers that ramp up the price. There are Samsung and Sony stores around and also an authorized distributor of iDevices, so you can get factory unlocked phones; most of the time though, you get them through one of the three providers (subsidized most likely). we have varied mobile plans, but no unlimited data we do have unlimited voice and/or sms on some of them though. Prices are pretty good from what I’ve gathered, compared to other countries, we might have one of the cheapest rates on mobile in the region, as a matter of fact. The market is flooded with cheap phones and tablets which make up most of the smartphones on people’s hands but that also means that almost everyone has access to social networks and the like. Many of the online retailers don’t ship directly to here, but there are a lot of proxy services to get them from Miami to the city although costs for that service varies between companies.

4G has just been implemented in two of the three carriers, mostly in our capital city; coverage depends on locations as most rural areas have some trouble getting 3G, some however have perfect connection. It depends how far you go into the country. Flagships tend to come pretty quickly here (a couple of months at most after the global launch, but the costs are really high compared to the average income, that is. Past year flagships don’t really drop that much in price, since they are still sought after even if a new one is present; carriers do get them out of circulation to focus on the new device.

Google play doesn’t really restrict many apps here and you can buy them freely with your credit card; you can also get subscriptions to Spotify, Netflix and the like. – KaosStorm

We have a fairly decent 3G network here (LTE coming in late 2015), coverage is lacking a little in some rural areas but that’s no big deal. Internet plans are ok, a little more expensive than in France, but we are used to it for €40 we can have up to 20MB/s internet, unlimited calls on landlines and mobile phones on selected countries, and TV.

My biggest complaint comes from Google itself. We are a French department and are therefore submitted to the same laws as them, but for some reason because we are overseas, Google does consider us as a separate market.

It means that we don’t have access to the same apps as the rest of the French territory, a VPN is often needed to unlock some apps on the first install and worse, we don’t have access to Google Now. Google Now was available for 1 year or so without any problem, and I had the time to really get into it then suddenly, for some reason now my Google account localizes me to a neighboring island which is also French and I can no longer access Google Now. From what I saw, regarding the issue, there is nothing I can do except wait for a change – Crinos

Devices are expensive considering the income level of average Panamanians. Two of the major four operators just recently started building out their LTE networks on a band that is different from the other countries in the region, the others are using (Band 28 APT). Cell phone plans are generally more expensive than in the US, there is no unlimited talk text data here and data plans only allot you a maximum of 2-3 GB per month, we have no option for 5GB as in the states. However our coverage is good in the capital and in some cities in the interior, but in some places there is zero coverage..not even regular GPRS/GSM. Service used to suck extensively but it’s gotten a bit better recently and LTE should improve matters. iOS users are a minority here, since low to mid-range Android devices reign supreme (and even Blackberry still). No matter which operator you are on, they ALL send you spam text messages advertising their latest promotions, offers etc and it gets super-annoying. On prepaid, some operators inexplicably deduct some of your balance for no reason…it just mysteriously drains. – Culex316

Puerto Rico ^

Being a power user in Puerto Rico is basically the same as in the US with only a few differences; here we have more operators than in the US, the income is less and we are a mostly mobile country/territory. We get most of the big players from the US, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, plus a local one (Open Mobile) and Claro. Coverage varies by provider, but where you live makes a big difference, in most of the island AT&T and Claro have excellent coverage and normal speeds; while T-Mobile, Open and Sprint serve the metro areas with blisteringly fast speeds. Since most of the people here connect to the world via their phones, the broadband operators have been stepping up their game in recent years by offering deals and promotions; even offering 50mbps+ where most have 5mbps.

As for phones, we mainly get the same as the US with a few additions from South America, like Azumi. Almost nobody buys unlocked phones, since they are very expensive, unless you are going to buy a cheap (mostly BLU) phone to use with an MVNO. The dominant phones are the iPhone and the “Galaxy” (all Galaxy series phones), which people pay for subsidized and therefore don’t know how expensive they are. You are automatically inferior if you don’t use the fruit-labeled phone, even if you are using a S6 and they are using an iPhone 4s. The average cost of a plan is from 50$ to 70$ but the local providers usually offer better deals; plus we have MVNOs which offer great bang-for-buck plans. We get the same streaming options as the US but some services, (like Uber) are rare to come by.

Rooting and flashing are seen as wizardry by l337 haxxors, so the dev community is non-existent in my area (don’t know about the metro area). The US based operators censor very heavily, but the local ones don’t. But things are starting to get better, heavy competition is driving prices down and contract-free plans are becoming more common. The things I’m awaiting the most is the ARA Phone, and the end of the dry season so I can take my phone out of its cover. – gorep1xel

United States ^

The 4 Major Players here are: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile. Service coverage as a whole is pretty good on most major providers in the US. We get virtually unlimited options. This is also our downfall, each carrier has it’s own version of phones. It then breaks down a step further from there: CDMA vs GSM. Most phones are available on all networks now, used to be many exclusives. (Motorola is still pretty Verizon exclusive). This makes rooting/bootloader unlocks more likely/sooner on international versions of phones. Phones can be subsidized, however this is starting to fade. (Lock into service agreement and pay lower price). Recently unlocking (not bootloader) was made law in the US, allowing phones to be used/taken to different providers provided they use the same technology (CDMA vs GSM).We have astronomically high data and voice cost compared to some other countries. (They get you on Data most though).

Most services/apps available to the US. Keep in mind though, it’s usually “Free” to us, but not really. Nothing is free. You are being data-mined. – SyCoREAPER

We have 3G coverage everywhere, all across the country on all 3 providers. You get H+ speeds here that’s around 3Mbps on H+. 4G (LTE) is also everywhere with just one provider (ANTEL) and the other 2 providers are expanding their 4G networks really fast. I have the cheapest 4G plan for about USD 25 and I get 2GB of 4G data and 100 minutes to calls, the data speed on my 4G plan is 20/2 Mbps. You can get better speed by paying more, but hey it’s a phone, I can wait 2 more seconds using my cheap plan. There’s a national plan by one of the providers (ANTEL) to install FTTH (Fiber To The Home), I have had fiber at home for about 1 year and a half, it’s amazing. I also have the cheapest plan, 25 USD and I get unlimited data at 20/2 Mbps (the same speeds that I get on my mobile but unlimited data). If you pay more, you can get 100/25 Mbps.

Credit cards can be used to buy online from USA stores, I usually buy phone accessories on Amazon and have them sent to Miami where I have a P.O. Box with a Uruguayan carrier that brings my stuff once a week on weekends flights. We can only buy up to USD 200 outside our country and bring it without import taxes(Customs taxes). We can have 5 of these 200 USD shipments per year, so I can only buy accessories. Buying phones from the USA and bringing them over is not allowed using this method. If I want a phone from Amazon you can buy it but when it arrives in Uruguay you’ll have to pay 250 USD to a Customs Agent + 60% of the phone cost on taxes. No one brings 1 phone because it’s too expensive.

As for streaming services we have Netflix which costs 9,32 USD and we can also use Spotify. – Socotroco

I sympathize with Iraqis and Iranians. But I think we (except North Korea) are the “winner” of the worst power user experience competition. All Google related stuff is banned, this means: You won’t be able to download your apps from the Official Play Store or keep your apps updated from the official source. You won’t be getting updates from Google even if you have Nexus line. Play services, etc doesn’t work. You can’t sign in the first time you set up your phone. The following apps won’t work due to censorship: Facebook, all the apps that start with Google, Twitter, Youtube, Reddit, Pandora, Netflix and Spotify (I am not sure). We have 3G and LTE, but good luck getting that to work on a 100MB a month data plan.

For the life of me I don’t understand why would anyone want to use an Android in China. I’d jump ship to Apple in a heartbeat. That half a year I spent back home was terrifying in terms of getting my phone to work. – wngmv

As a power user who regularly uses iOS, Android, and Windows, here is brief run down of the situation in India. iOS is utterly useless in India. Most people using iOS are wannabe Apple fans who end up buying a cheap iPhone 4 that is probably not being sold anywhere else in the world and are stuck with iOS 6 to which none of the latest apps work. More than that they end up buying 8 GB versions, with iOS taking up almost 5.5 GB space, and then they complain about not having enough space in their iPhones. iOS devices are now usually available at launch, however, they are amongst the most heavily marked up products. A base version unlocked iPhone 6 that you could get for $650 in the US will cost a $1,000 here. That is the official price.

On the Android front things are improving dramatically. You can get an Android One phone for like $70 right now. The software experience on these things is amazing. After some initial updates issues, the spare Android One phones I have at home are updating at par with my Nexus 5. Unlike the US, businesses tend to advertise their Android apps first, and iOS apps get a passing mention. Also, the loosening grip of Samsung is quite visible these days as people are slowly moving towards Motorola, Xiaomi, and Oneplus phones. Windows phone’s are very hard to find, and are usually seen in the hands of Microsoft employees or people who still believe in Nokia.

On the Apps front, the greatest deficit is in the music and video streaming space. That means we have no Netflix or Spotify, or any other streaming service of repute. Frankly speaking a country that considers 512 kbps to be broadband doesn’t deserve streaming services. Broadband is a joke with caps on max data usage on 3G speeds at 15 GB. 3G speeds are decent when available. – Harry Pewter

Sharing a similar story swayamprakash2001 gives his experience as a power user in India as well.

Almost all devices are available at competitive prices and Android one devices are available at 4000 Indian rupees. Samsung is the current market leader in phones, they have devised a model for every price point, however Samsung devices of late have become a standard user and a not a power users choice, all Samsung devices are Exynos except Note 4. Indian players like Micromax, Spice, Karbonn have started disrupting the market and with the new brand called Yu from Micromax offering Cyanogen OS out of the box at very very disruptive pricing. Online shopping is now a big trendsetter. People also use feature phones (non-smart), though that trend is changing due to cheap android phones, Some loyal Nokia brand people use Windows phones (cheap ones). We do not have locked devices or carrier bloat, although manufacturer bloatware is still there. The major carriers are Bnsl(government), Airtel, Aircel, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance and Tata docomo. The best service is on Airtel and Vodafone for the most part unless you are in the eastern side where reliance is good.

A lot of people however think smartphone means iPhone and even normal users sheds a lot of cash on an iPhone and then use it for standard email/text/fb/WhatsApp purpose. iPhones are very commonplace though most people buying them are wannabes since the phone is available for an arm and leg price, however even Samsung, LG, Sony have started offering similar prices for their top products.

There are no restrictions on internet access, all services are available however our Internet speeds are slow, 3G coverage is good in metros and tier-2 cities, prices are still high even for 2G data and most people go for 1Gb Internet packs for around 5 USD on average. 4G is only offered by Airtel in select cities and prices are again high although network congestion is very high in some areas at cities, hence sometimes calls get dropped. Broadband speeds offered by ISP varies largely based on state. Roaming charges apply when travelling from one state to another, incoming calls are charged, but you do not receive data roaming charges unless you are roaming with another network than your SIM provider. Mostly people prefer prepaid, corporate users and businessmen use postpaid with special corporate plans. Streaming services for music/video not available, again low Internet speeds and High data processing might be a reason. WhatsApp and FB are people’s choice for Social Networking. All new devices come with one year manufacturers warranty, however claiming on warranty services totally depend on the brand you are using and your luck – swayamprakash2001

Almost every thinkable device is available in this market since its official launch. At first it comes with an astronomic price which can sometimes be 50% higher than global price and it gradually reaches the normal price as the device becomes more available and hype vanishes; sometimes you have to wait until the next-gen is announced! There is no shipping to Iran and we can’t get credit cards so no online purchases either. Again there is no “global warranty” available and you have to pay extra for a local warranty. Recently network operators announced 4G but it comes with a very high price relative to average income ($400-600 per month) and is very crap. A lot of online services and social media are unavailable because of sanctions, censorship and filtering. – hadi_fotovati

Giving an alternate view, ahuramajdi talks about their concerns with Google’s thoughts on Iran.

As a power user and someone who loves Google’s style and way of thinking almost everything is not available for us from Google itself (Like Google Now, Location Services, Maps is literally just Maps) and is not censored by the government. An Iranian once asked Eric Schmidt about it in I/O 2012, Schmidt explained that this is because of US sanctions and isn’t something he can do anything about. “I’m with you but prison is like… there’s no bandwidth”. So as an Iranian I was pretty offended, to fight for my beliefs and country I joined a campaign with most of the android users in Iran to not use android and the Google services. It was good for 3 months until my course at university began (i’m studying IT) and needs for a smart phone compelled me to buy a Galaxy S4 as I couldn’t buy an iphone. The damn thing sells for almost double the price here and there is no guarantee for it, Windows phone was (and is still is) just sad.

Now i’m rooted and running gearcm (android 5.1.1) and pretty happy about it but the lack of these services and the continued comments of Google’s high rankers about Iran is verrrrrryyy humiliating and hard. – ahuramajdi

Nothing is available in my country for power users. You cannot buy anything online due to the lack of credit cards and even if we did have credit cards, there are no shipping companies that will ship here. Most phones cannot be found even in stores. We are unable to sell apps on the Play Store and since Google bought Songza and limited it’s use here, we now no longer have any music subscription services. 3G has only just become available on our networks and whilst some countries have even had 4G for ages now, our plans suck! Most people who repair phones have no prior experience in the field so it’s very hit and miss. We don’t even get warranties here! Our internet usage is not monitored nor censored in any way. I think we’re the only country where ISP’s don’t block a single service at all, though after ISIS controlled Mosul, Facebook was blocked for about 3 weeks and that’s it. Though I’ve stumbled across websites that block connections from Iraq. – Beaner

Cellphones face about 35% tax added to their price, in terms of market share. It feels 50/50 Android/iOS. We don’t have official LTE but there is “limited testing” due to regulations. Meaning that all big cities has LTE coverage. Communication has undergone some major changes lately and we’ve seen several new players (including a subsidiary of French company Free) meaning that for $30 we get unlimited texts and calls even for US and European landlines and up to 45 days a year of roaming with 6gb per month. And here you get unlimited data that gets throttled when you reach 20GB. Regarding ISPs, the new players are priced at $30 for 100 Mb/3 Mb VDSL though the limits are mostly infrastructure related especially within cities and rural areas limiting to 15Mbit. These are the highest prices you can get much cheaper rates for less bandwidth / monthly usage.

In terms of content, Only iTunes has a fully functional service. All others provide only apps (eg. Google Play) and we have no Spotify or Netflix etc. Most users will download through torrents or use YouTube for streaming. – ttg

To start up we have pretty good 3G over here and carriers name it 3.75G for that matter and prices are pretty average and there are no unlimited data plans you get 40GB of data max and then speed gets throttled pretty badly to at least 56kbps. There are 3 main carriers (Orange , Zain and Umniah), smart phone prices are the best part as you can get a galaxy S6 Edge as low as $480 due to no taxes applied on electronics although you get crappy warranty from whichever reseller you get. I’d like to jump back to the internet, 4G has been recently introduced but prices are sky high, it’s $560 for a 2 month 20GB plan. On the other hand every single person here has a smartphone of some extent, there is no censorship whatsoever no even for “P” ! adding to this there is no public WiFi or free internet anywhere due to low prices of carrier deals. – Mr Zero :O

In Lebanon there are 2 carriers, these are Alfa and Touch. The network coverage is best in the capital which is Beirut, and it’s not bad in other places. Not long ago 4G became available in Beirut. You may find the cheapest prices over here for unlocked phones, it is not usual for people to have contracts. Internet in Lebanon may not be the fastest around but most people are connected to Internet either on their mobile or DSL or both. There is no censorship in Lebanon and you can access any service you want. The people of Lebanon love technology, and directly accompany it. Many of the people here get new phones directly after they are announced. –

Portal Editor GermainZ adds to this by stating:

Phone vendors mostly cater to Samsung and iPhone users since those are the most popular. Some other flagships are also available and advertised, such as the M9 or the G4, but you probably wouldn’t have much luck getting anything else like a Nexus in more popular shops

Malaysia has pretty expensive data subscriptions, there are 4 major carriers here: Celcom, Digi, Maxis and U-Mobile. Almost all have unlimited internet quota but after reaching the quota the speed is capped at 64kbps. The price of home internet is expensive. The culprit here is TM which is government based and almost all the networks here rely on it. For 5Mbps unlimited you have to pay about $40 a month which is quite expensive here. There are other network providers too like TIMES, which are much cheaper than TM but the coverage is very limited. Although 4G LTE is available, the coverage is quite lacking. Celcom has the largest LTE network here which covers more of the country than the other competitors. 3G is still spreading in rural areas. There is almost no censorship here, some sites that are blocked include Porn sites and Illegal Download Sites. There are no carrier specifics device here, so no bloatware and the devices are unlocked so you can easily swap the sim card. Warranties are varied some are good, others however are not.

Almost all Google Services like Youtube etc are available here except Play Music, Movies and the Device store. But we have many alternatives. For music we have Spotify, Deezer, Tidal and many more that are available here for about 5USD a month. For movies some people use Netflix, it is unavailable here but can easily bypass by using VPN. We can get Nexus devices easily here unofficially, but they are quite expensive compared to US prices. – muhammadnajmi96

Pricing is critical to us, especially for off-contract phones. We condemn phones when they’re too expensive for the specs it offers for example anything with a Mediatek 6592 apparently must cost under 150 USD here or it will not sell. There are practically only 4 kinds of phones over here – dumb phones (old Nokias,) cheap Android phones (Cheap is relative here; I include the local phones as well as the flagship killers Meizu, Oppo, Lenovo.) Samsung Galaxy’s (from the A3 to S6 Edge) and iPhones (5S’ and 6’s.) Once in a while I see a Lumia, but these four phones are what I see most often. And accessories and after sale support reflects this as such.

There are essentially only two mobile networks here, they compete over who can (violate net neutrality rules best) package more services into an ‘internet promo’ bundled with call and text services. Data speeds are decent at best and non-existent at worst, it’s a 50/50 chance you’ll suffer within the day. Only the big cities and tourist centres have 4G LTE spots. Some areas have 4G HSPA+ (really 3G.) In the highways only 2G, there are even places you can only get GPRS and dead reception areas. The speeds are bad. We have one of the worst internet speeds in the world. Apparently India has ever so slightly better Internet speeds than us. The networks appear to be allergic to unlimited data plans, they charge (monthly) 60 USD for 18 GB data and 25 USD for just 4.5GB? T-Mobile can get away with charging a fixed rate of 80 for truly unlimited data. There is a very aggressive throttling policy as well, which is compounded by ridiculous data caps and overage charges. There is no censorship, torrent services are not blocked. Nothing is blocked. However, reports of clampdowns on illegally downloading local shows pop up sometimes.

We recently got carrier billing for Apple App store and Google Play. Clash of Clans is very big here; T-shirts of the damn thing are sold in actual stores. Spotify is a big deal here. We do not have Netflix, but iFlix (Malaysia-based) is being pushed aggressively, it carries the entire CBS catalog, even old shows and is 4 USD/month for now, worth it. – Paolo T.

Paolo recently got back in touch to give us this update:

“Right now, our country is now carrying streaming services – most prominent are iFlix, “Asia’s Netflix,” to which one of the big carriers invested upon; and Spotify, backed by the other big carrier. I mean, there is SOME improvement on internet speeds and reliability, but it’s so negligible, that it has reached the point that government agencies are now only just intervening to improve the situation and consider they’re only actively intervening on WIRED, broadband connections, not wireless connections (A complaints page won’t do much favours.) On one hand, iFlix costs 2.50 USD to sign up, which undercuts the 4.99 of Netflix. On another, the internet of the country. Consider that they still mandate archaic and arbitrary data caps, for example the bundled MB for iFlix is EITHER 600MB or 1GB On top of an archaic data cap (I mean, 25USD = 5GB data?!)

(Say the 1GB iFlix bundle for 25USD. Presume that the file sizes of TV series as rendered in 480P on P2P sites, i.e. torrent, is 200MB, that leaves just 5 EPISODES OR 1 MOVIE to be able to be streamed by the user; they practically want you to fall back to WiFi. And that’s on top of the craptastic wired connections here!)

I mean, they opened up streaming here but the craptastic internet that I pointed out at the Atlas was NOT improved in any tangible way, and they’re openly violating net neutrality principles in every imaginable way…”

Sri Lanka ^

The situation here is now OK and is still improving. We have 3G coverage for nearly any reachable place and decent speed too even in very rural areas. There is no price difference in Mobile 4G and 3G, if you have a compatible 4G device – 4G will work on the same package and our internet speeds are improving all the time. It is cheaper as well now 40GB on ADSL costs around $11 (LKR 1490) and for $0.75 (LKR 100) per day we get fully unlimited Data during 12 midnight to 6AM. Considering we are a small country we have five mobile operators, so competition is very high and the calls, SMS, internet charges are very low.

Newer models are never available on the launch day – it will take around 2-3 weeks to arrive here, most of the time prices are the same but it is hard to find a place offering international warranty, most places offer their own warranty which is very unreliable. There are so many counterfeit mobile phones available in the market, if you are not buying the product from an authorized seller, there is around 90% chance that you have bought a counterfeit device I have even seen some people selling counterfeit iPhones running Android. Most of the fake Samsung phones are marketed here as Korean version made by the OEM, which they are not. There is no censorship on our internet except for some porn sites. As developers we cannot sell apps on Google play store because no merchant accounts are allowed here, We have no streaming services like Netflix and Spotify although Deezer was activated recently.

As credit cards are available we can buy items online and for items not available here there are private businesses which will bring most of the permitted items to import from US or UK markets at a very cheap commission. We can import most of those products ourselves from US or UK markets even those Amazon sellers who only ship to US. – madushan92

Most of Google’s products and developer related services are blocked due to US sanctions. The Play store is not accessible and you can’t download/update using it. Cell phone prices are a bit high, but for local currency it is way too high, like you have to save your complete salary for about 6-7 months to even be able to consider a galaxy or a high-end. You cannot 3G on the same sim as a talking line, 3G is only available as a data sim only. and of course there is no LTE. My 3G bundle is 2GB/month for around $5. The ADSL connection is crappy, I am rocking 1Mb/sec at home and consider myself to have a fast connection in my city (Damascus). As for repairing we have a dedicated market for all types of cell phone, of course we used Chinese non-original repair parts due to high costs.

Samsung, Nokia (Symbian), Sony, HTC and the hated iPhone are taking the market at the moment. There is no sign of Blackberry, Windows phones or Moto, there is of course some LG out here. – sami-shalhoub

IT malls have all major brands for the standard international price and there are thousands of unofficial shops selling original and fake parts and provide repair services for a low price, accessories can be found everywhere cheap. We have fast and cheap 4G and high coverage in cities. There are Wi-fi access points across the country provided by network carriers. Prepaid phones can be topped up at places like 7eleven. The country does however focus a lot on iPhone, everyone saves money to buy an iPhone, no matter how much better or price worthy an Android could be. No one here has heard of Xiaomi or OnePlus etc. People use mobiles phones for only two things, LINE messengers and simple social games. We do have virtually no free speech, ISPs have to block websites criticizing the monarchy or the military government we also have lèse-majesté law – Jan ยาน

This is a country where a large portion of all the money is still held by old corrupt politicians and old media conglomerates and thus the users that have the funds to buy high end tech are close to zero. The young people in my country tend to want to leave ASAP after they finish school, thus limiting the potential power user base even more. Here’s the fun side: in the bigger cities our internet coverage and speed… let me put it this way. I’m paying $10 a month for 50 mbps for the internet that is on my PC, which, as I was informed, was a crazy speed for close to no money. We have 3 major players on the mobile front: M-Tel, Vivacom (my carrier) and ex-Globul, who were bought by Telenor, and everyone is trying to bulls*** users by any means necessary. They are all claiming they have the best 3G coverage, and while I haven’t tested M-Tel and Telenor recently, Vivacom’s coverage in the cities is pretty good. None of them offer 4G. There’s a fresh fourth player for that, Maxtelecom, but they offer only data, you can’t use voice calls on their network yet.

At launch they offered 300 gigabytes of data @ 75 mbps speeds and still offer it for the equivalent of $18. The contracts for the three major players, though, are goddamn ridiculous for a country like this and the paying capabilities of the majority of the people. Our country’s laws prohibit the giving of a free device with a contract, and one has to pay ridiculous amounts of cash for a new device. Though recently they realized themselves, and in some cases offered unlimited calls and texts and 2 GB of HSPA+ data for the equivalent of $12. Smartphones are still a relatively new thing, though in recent years we have been quite fast to import the new models of the major players, I was able to see and test the iPhone 6 some 10 days after it’s global launch. Speaking of the forbidden fruit, the users that can afford smartphones are dumb as hell and believe that the iPhone is the best you can get, and because of this belief, Apple products remain ridiculously overpriced. Whereas, in our biggest second hand portal, you can find a flawless Note 3 N9005 for some $270 and a flawless Note 4 for some $430.

So, about the actual power users. The situation being like this, the richer power users opt for buying the phone new outright, and the not-so-rich-users (like me, of course) opt for a well kept second hand device. In this regard the Samsung flagships from 2013 and 2014 are the best value, because you slap a new battery in the thing, and if it’s display and internals aren’t damaged, it’s as good as new and ready to rock. Conclusion: if you make some 2000$ a month and can work from anywhere in the world, move here. The internet for your PC is fast, stable and cheap, soon there will be a proper 4G carrier, and the food is cheap at this salary point! – sirobelec

Although we are one big happy Nordic family, Denmark is different from Sweden and Norway. We have quite good offers for mobile calls, they are around €13 and you get free calls if you add another €5 and with some, you get 30GB data with 4G 90MBit transfer rates. Most of Denmark is covered by TDC with good 4G connections, even in the small cities, where fiber and copper lines are less good or offered. With Telia/Telenor closing in on the full Denmark coverage plan but still not as good. There are many sister companies of the big companies, using their networks and offering much cheaper mobile contracts, which is very good for competition and why I pay €18 today and have free data 4G,talk/sms/mms. Good offers show up sometimes due to the competition here. We have no censoring on apps or payments on Play or apple store, except those Apple already do themselves. From what I know, Android has the majority of the Danish market with Apple being number 2. Microsoft have had a hard time with no gains on market share at all. Denmark offers the best of both worlds to mobile owners, but when it comes to warranty coverage, the insurance companies and local repair companies tries to utilize the Samsung Knox counter as a warranty void issue, and so far it keeps development to be less interesting for most android owners i guess. Personally I have had less issues with cracked mobiles, so I couldn’t care less and continue to break the warranty

Well I guess we have almost no Censorship regarding our phones and or apps. Devices are for the most part available. Of course they are not always the same as in the US, but still we have a good amount of phones here that are affordable, maybe $50 more than in the US but not always. We have 3 Main Carriers (T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2). In this Case O2 has always been the worst of these three. But there has been a fourth one (EPlus), which has been bought by O2 and their Services were merged together, so O2 really got better. I don’t know how much a Phone call is, due to me having a flat rate, but I guess it isn’t that much. Unfortunately we have almost no possibility of getting an Unlimited Data Plan, I would need this a lot. 10GB are just not enough for one Month if you are have LTE.

The LTE network is quite good, at least in the bigger cities. I even have LTE in the Subway. You have LTE almost everywhere and that is actually really great. My experience as a power user here in Germany is, that there are not many people interested in it. So most of them don’t even know there are possibilities beyond buying the Phone, taking pictures, Whatsapp, Facebook, Phone and SMS. – esok44

We have it reasonably good here. Phones are roughly the same as US plus 40 or 50 euro. Importing phones is not an option most of the time due to shipping. The market is dominated by Samsung, iSheep and HTC in that order. There is a small but loyal Sony following. Brands like OnePlus, Xiaomi, Huawei even larger ones like LG or Motorola are near to non-existent due to shops not carrying them. (I have never seen anyone in this country with an LG). We have 4 main networks with 2 or 3 subsidiaries who piggy back on them. Vodafone, 3, Meteor, eMobile. 3 are the largest and have unlimited data plans (throttled at roughly 15GB, depending on luck), but limited range of phones and poor coverage outside cities and main towns handicap them. In cities they reign supreme, outside them, Vodafone dominate due to excellent coverage but average speeds. The other two sort of carve a middle ground, with eMobile more focused on offering “all-in-one” bundles that include cable and landlines (for those who still use them). 4G is poor generally, with 3 the best, then Meteor, Vodafone. All are limited to Cities, but data speeds are good when you can find coverage, 20Mbytes/sec on a good day.

No censorship here, a few ISP block torrent sites.

The only blight on the market is a high proportion of people who think an iPhone is the epitome of all a phone can be and don’t even want to dip there toe into the more techy side of things. Along with this, specifically the experience of a power user, is the frustration that most mobile phone “professionals” will know less about any problems you have than you do, so if you can’t fix it, your screwed. – Paul

We get 3G in almost all of Italy although in big cities we have 4G but it’s expensive from some companies but it’s really fast! At home we have difficulty with only having 7mb/s connection, 100mb/s connections are only available in big cities, but it’s very expensive. I have a 10mb/s connection and I pay 40€/month. Prices of mobiles are slightly higher than other European countries. But online you can find very good offers. Warranties are very good if you buy online, but with some physical shops sometimes you have to wait months until you see your phone again. The state postal service is horrible, for getting a package outside Europe you have to wait 1 month (3 days to arrive in Italy, 27 days to arrive at your home, if it arrives at all, because untraceable parcels very often do not arrive). Couriers are awesome, if you buy online 99.9% of the sellers ship the parcel with them.

We have difficulty in accessing services such as Netflix etc. We do have similar services like that with some big TV companies, but it’s expensive and you can see about 2 TV series in total. As a developer if you want to start a company it’s very difficult because taxes are very high. – simoneluconi

We are the newest country on the planet and have two carriers (“Vala” which covers 99% of Kosovo with LTE and “IPKO” which covers 75% of Kosovo with LTE) and two MVNO’s (Z-mobile and D3 which work with 2.5G or EDGE). Most of the smartphones here are off contract but there is a tendency going towards contract phones especially the expensive ones. Kosovars like iPhone’s a lot, but android is close behind. Prices on a contract for one year with a Samsung S6 (including 1000 min, 1000 SMS and 2 Gb of data – monthly) will cost you 650 euros (a lot I know). There is no censorship of any kind that I know in Kosovo. The Internet code is not assigned yet to Kosovo (in a few months it will be resolved) but internet usage is at 76.6% of population (November 2013 estimate); Our average broadband upload rate is 3.1 Mbps and the Average broadband download rate is 7.3 Mbps –

Data incomplete



In Monaco there’s only one provider – Monaco Telecom, but they use the French network Orange as an MVNO. Because of this, Monaco mobile numbers use the prefix +33 (for France) instead of +377 (for Monaco). iPhone is very heavy here. The iPhone is a fashion accessory and you’re in possibly the most vanity conscious country in the world. iPhone is king here. In terms of Internet, the wifi networks I’ve used have been reliable. For things like 3G, it’s essentially the French network. Even though my network is SFR in France, it doesn’t change when I’m in Monaco with it being that small. But SFR is an absolutely shit network, my 3G is temperamental at times to say the least. Apparently Bouygues Telecom is the best network over here. But for signal it’s maybe best to use someone else because I live right on the border, so I’ll sometimes wake up and be connected to an Italian network. I’m not sure of how competitive the tariffs are for Monaco Telecom – it’s best to look on their website, but essentially the mobile network there is the French one, there would be nothing to stop you from using a French phone there if it was to work out cheaper.

As Netflix is available in France, I would imagine it to be available in Monaco (albeit the French version). Bear in mind that some very rich and influential people live in Monaco, so Prince Albert will make sure they are very comfortable and get whatever they need. – J.Fletcher

We’re a country very equal to Sweden, mostly if we think about the living standard and salaries. Over 99% of the population have a connection to a high-speed 4G network with a decent smartphone, 98% of the country’s transactions are made with a Credit card or a Debit card. The majority of the market is still controlled by Apple, but more and more people are deciding to buy an Android phone. We actually only do pay for the data/4G in today’s carrier packages (free calls, mms/sms are included in all packs) and the average price for a pack with 5GB data and free calls/messages’s about 300kr/m (~$45). Average salary is 30-40 thousand NOK a month (~£4.5-4k/m) so carrier’s prices aren’t that high for the most of us.

A common problem here is that almost 50% of our country’s covered with woods and hills, which means that only 60% of the country’s area has a decent 4G-network, and about 80% has a decent 3G/H+ coverage. One of the biggest carriers in country NetCom is rebuilding it’s network to deliver a better and more decent quality of signal, but won’t be ready to use before the end of 2017. We’re too very lucky we’re not part of the EU, but only the EEA, so we don’t really have to go by all the EU rules and conditions. – SnobaTamba

I am from Romania and we have very fast and cheap internet. For example a 1000 Mbps speed monthly plan is 12 euros. I have at home a 200 Mbps plan and I can download torrents with 25 MB/s. We have 4 main mobile operators, Vodafone, Orange, Telekom and RDS. An unlimited calls and messages plan at Vodafone is 19 euros, including VAT, with 1.5 GB 4G internet. We have very good coverage with 4G present in major towns mostly. I have H and 4G speeds in subway trains as well, not only in stations. But mobile internet speed is good with H+, H and 3G. Some operators offers free WIFI in some places like subway stations. The mobile phones prices are comparable to the UK for example, I bought some mobile phones from there because they arrived later in our stores. For example, an S6 Edge is 840 euros. We have good online stores and they are ok with warranties, my S6 Edge was bought online from Vodafone and the first phone had some issues so they sent me a new one. Vodafone and Orange also offer insurance for mobile phones bought from them.

We have access to Google Play and Music but no access to Netflix. There is no censorship now. We had enough till 1989 when communism ended. But we have had corruption since then. – 2dorr

The networking in Russia is very different from USA or Europe. Our landline networks were build in the late 90s and 2000s so we made a direct jump from dial-up to FTTB while almost completely skipping ADSL and coax. Consequently we have lots of bandwidth. Therefore speaking about cable internet you can get at least 100mbps for under $20 in most large cities.

Mobile networking is also good. We have three major carriers: MTS, Beeline and Megafon (which also owns the Yota brand). For many years Tele2 has been trying to reach a significant market share but up until recently it was heavily pushed out of the market by the unfair competition and government (which supports the “Big Three”), but this carrier has always kept the prices below the market average.

One can expect the price for the “unlimited” mobile internet to be around $5-$20. However these contracts are not really unlimited. The speed is cut down to 64kbps once you use the cap which ranges from 2GB to 30GB depending on the carrier and the contract.

The network coverage is generally very good. In huge cities like Moscow mobile internet may be a bit slow in some crowded places during the day time but this is very rare. Most of cafes offer wi-fi with internet access. Wifi is also available in the underground and trains. Most of the networks are GSM and support LTE. For some time SkyLink was providing the CDMA-450 coverage in selected areas but looks like it has come to decay.

One interesting thing is that Russian laws until recently prohibited sim-locking the phone to a certain carrier. As of today only some ultra-cheap phones are available sim-locked with a contract bundle while most premium phones are sim-free and are sold separately. The handset prices are generally the same as in US/Europe and a bit lower than in the UK, but again, keep in mind that you have to pay the whole sum at once and not within a year or two.

One disappointing trend is the increasing censorship. The courts were given authority to censor arbitrary web sites and after the law was introduced two years ago, it has been widely used as an instrument of political pressure. Some sites like github.com and wikipedia.org were shut down for a couple of days. While officially these censor laws were introduced to restrict the access to the “extremist” materials and to the information that “can be harmful for children” in the majority of cases it was used to mock the political opposition and drive out competitors from the business. –

We have 3G in our major cities, and even LTE in certain parts of Belgrade, you can buy 150 Mb of data for $3 which adds up quickly. We have decent internet and good Wi-fi even if it is quite pricey, but that is to be expected. The play store only offers apps, paid and free although very few people in Serbia still buy apps. The people of Serbia actually love repairing and modding old phones (I still see people using Symbian). The most used apps around here are Facebook, Whatsapp, Viber and Instagram. – Nikolayy2013

Everything is available as Sweden is a prioritized market, There is no censorship. 4G holds cover over 99% of the population with high speeds. All phones are available at launch or very close to. Apple still holds most of the market with approx 35-40%. All streaming services are available. A 40GB data, unlimited texts and calls, with a free phone upon signing up is $70/month. The warranties are pretty solid and power outages never occur

The girls are pretty too. Shame the sun only shines for 8 months a year. But my screen is bright. – Smidefix

In Switzerland, most international smartphones are available both with carriers and off-contract. Some online retailers even offer a decent selection of imported devices like Xiaomi phones. Like most European countries, they thankfully don’t add their ugly logos on the phones. But anyway buying phones off-contract is pretty popular here, and is helped by having companies like Sony making high-end phone for a decent price like the Xperia Z3C, which is pretty popular at this moment, although Apple still holds the crown with around 40-50% of market share.

As for mobile coverage, most of the territory is covered with 4G network across all 3 carries (Swisscom, Sunrise, and ‘Salt.’, previously called Orange), with maybe the exception of uninhabited mountains, but that’s to be expected. Also, it’s worth noting that like many carriers, Sunrise and Orange offer data plans with a limited amount of GB (1GB to 10GB) per month, whereas Swisscom offers unlimited amounts of data, but with a limited speed. They even offer a 169 CHF plan (around $180) that has unlimited data AND speed. I even know a couple of guys who ditched their fixed internet connection and only have a phone they use as hotspot at home, which I find incredible.

As far as features go, We are pretty lucky as most services are available even though it’s a very small country, but that’s probably helped by the fact that historically the government has never really tried to block anything we’re not part of the EU. – Miomjon

United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland) ^

In the UK (England in particular) we have a plethora of carriers and what can feel like too much choice. With Three, EE (a partnership between Orange + T-Mobile), Vodafone, O2 and a bunch of MVNOs like Tesco Mobile and a new carrier called iD. All of the main carriers offer 4G with hundreds of combinations of texts, minutes and data, with some carriers (like Three) offering unlimited data. SIM only plans are gaining traction with unlimited 4G data from Three for as little as £17 per month (approx $26 per month). One of the main areas of competition between the carriers at the moment is where they offer free roaming. Carriers such as Three and iD allow you to use your plans allowance (texts, mins and data) in countries all over the world including the USA. Roaming within EU will be abolished in June of 2017. As everyone here probably knows the iPhone still remains prevalent with Samsung coming in at the top of Android. All-in-all it’s pretty good over here. – jimmygoska

Comparative Data ^

Here you can find data related to just the countries listed above which will be updated as more countries are added.















Global Analysis ^

Here is data for 207 different countries, based on 2013 estimates.

All data provided by Wolfram Alpha Pro

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