Thread: Costs

160/40Mbit connection with unlimited data costs me $24/month here in Japan. Mobile phones are a bit weird, but from some time this year they are moving to SIM portability, so I suspect prices will drop...

Mean while in Australia Telstra is giving away FREE WiFi well they are and we are paying for it with the high costs we get charged.

Originally Posted by DavidG

Couple of things from my latest trip overseas.

In Singapore, at a relatives house I used their internet. It was quick.
I asked what speed it was. He replied "I only took the 200mb plan with 4 tv channels. Costs $74 per month.

I'm not surprised,, the population density of Singapore is 20,000, [EDIT:whoops, that's per sq mile, should be 7600) whereas for OZ it's 3 persons persons/km².
Even the city of Sydney only has a population density of around 2000 persons/km².
Space people further apart and things will cost more no matter what else you do and here is OZ we can always find ways of adding more to costs.

What we're essentially paying for is the price of urban sprawl and lifestyle.
The average family can either have a 1/4 acre block in the outer burbs OR fast internet, you cannot have it all for the same price.
It's also worth asking what all the "guest workers" in Singapore get paid.

None of our cities have the infrastructure that puts them in the truly modern global city category.
see http://www.smh.com.au/comment/sydney...412-zqtpy.html

Don't know where you got that 20,000 figure for Singapore from Bob, World Bank shows about 7,500.

Even Monaco doesn't get to 20,000 yet (18,800).

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST

Originally Posted by Big Shed

Don't know where you got that 20,000 figure for Singapore from Bob, World Bank shows about 7,500.

Even Monaco doesn't get to 20,000 yet (18,800).

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST

Whoops that per sq mile for singapre, still near 4 times more than Sydney

Bobble is pretty well on the money. We see the decreasing size of city and town blocks as a function of costs : costs of
roads, electricity supply water supply, sewerage and general maintenance of said infrastructure.

My beef with phones, internet and so on is the number of pathetic excuses thrown our way to justify lack of service. I have
travelled through Brazil, Chile and parts of Argentina where one might expect inferior service but this is not always the case.

In Chile we had great internet service everywhere from southern Patagonia, to the high Andes and Easter Island. Prices were also
very good - US$1.00 for 30 minutes in Punta Arena, a little more on Easter Island.

Just my 2c.

Originally Posted by BobL

I'm not surprised,, the population density of Singapore is 20,000, [EDIT:whoops, that's per sq mile, should be 7600) whereas for OZ it's 3 persons persons/km².
Even the city of Sydney only has a population density of around 2000 persons/km².
Space people further apart and things will cost more no matter what else you do and here is OZ we can always find ways of adding more to costs.

What we're essentially paying for is the price of urban sprawl and lifestyle.

or as a transport professional I know puts it (he hails from the UK)

"the problem you Australians have is there's not that many of you and you live a long way apart"

which succinctly explains why we don't have

super fast internet
high speed trains
etc

though it doesn't completely explain the "Australia tax"

From the ABS -

"So based on data from the 2011 Census and formatted for the square kilometre grid it's easy to see that Sydney has more areas of very high density - there are 21 square kilometres with more than 8,000 people per square kilometre - compared to Melbourne's solitary one square kilometre above this population density.

"Sydney also had larger and more widely spread out areas of high density living - 93 square kilometres of between 5,000 and 8,000 people per square kilometre, while Melbourne had 33 square kilometres in the same range.

"Brisbane was the only other capital city to register anything in these higher density categories with 3 square kilometres between 5,000 and 8,000 people per square kilometre"

"This all pales when you look internationally - London has 327 square kilometres with a density greater than 8 000 people per square kilometre,"

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]?OpenDocument