Australia stacks up pretty well when it comes to the price of mobile data around the world.

It’s not uncommon to hear complaints about how much we pay on our mobile plans, so the best advice is often to compare plans. This also extends to seeing just how much other people around the world pay for their plans, or at least how much they pay for mobile data. A new report has been released, showing exactly that, comparing just how much people pay for 10GB data per 1Mbps download speed in each country.

The report, from TopDollar, compares the price paid to Mbps in every country around the globe to show which countries have the most, as well as least affordable mobile data. They used data from World Bank

The results are interesting, with Australia doing comparatively well. We managed to clock in at just $0.06 for 10GB mobile data per 1Mbps – tied with Italy, Kyrgyzstan and France. Israel took the top spot, with their users on average paying just $0.01 for the same amount/speed – and they also get the bonus of having the most affordable mobile data, with 10GB costing the equivalent of 0.02% of the average monthly paycheck.

Unfortunately, for anyone living on the African continent that price is often exorbitant, with Namibians paying up to $11.36 for the same data at the same speed. This is actually compounded by the low average income in these countries. Top Dollar actually points out that ‘Eight of the ten least affordable data plans are in countries where salaries are measured in hundreds rather than thousands of dollars’. 

Here in Australia though, it’s a pretty good deal with healthy competition from our telcos, with 0.20% of the average paycheck being used for 10Gb of mobile data.

In African countries, big players in the tech world including Google and Facebook have both made moves to bring increased internet access and speeds to users. Google first tried with ‘Project Loon’, which was cancelled early this year but has since pivoted with plans for ‘Equiano’, an underwater cable running from Portugal down to South Africa stopping off at a number of countries along the way. Facebook too is building their ‘2AFrica’ underwater cable  which will connect Europe to the African continent. 

The push to increase overall download speeds and improve latency here in Australia with 5G rollouts across all our telcos has meant we’re looking pretty good. It sometimes seems we pay a lot, but with this perspective it shows we’re doing pretty well.