from the censoirship-included-in-the-price dept.
El Reg reports
Tired of continual price hikes on your broadband deal? Then why not move to Iran? According to a study released today, it has the cheapest broadband (if you're willing to ignore political and social problems).
The survey conducted by cable.co.uk and BDRC Continental ranked 196 countries on their monthly prices for a broadband connection, using 3,351 consumer packages tracked over eight weeks (ending October 12) to calculate the average.
At $5.37 (£4.05) a month, Iran beats second placed Ukraine at $5.52 a month, with both significantly cheaper than Russia at $9.82 a month.
Burkina Faso is last at 196th place, costing users $954.54 (£720.77) per month. Papua New Guinea is 195th, but much better at $597.20 (£450.95), then Namibia at $431.99 (£326.20). The UK comes in 62nd place, averaging £30.54 a month($40.44).
(Score: 5, Funny) by Nerdfest on Thursday November 23 2017, @07:46PM (14 children)
Well, I'd go there and purchase it, but Iran ... Iran so far away.
(Score: 5, Funny) by zocalo on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:16PM (9 children)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:55PM (7 children)
s/censoirship/censorship
...unless I missed a joke.
theocracy
You and I are working on a similar wavelength.
Original Submission [soylentnews.org]
Suggested dept. line:
from the see:-theocracy-ain't-so-bad dept.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday November 23 2017, @09:05PM (5 children)
Sir, if I may ask...what does "Iran the numbers..." mean?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @09:10PM (4 children)
Yeah. Folks who pronounce the name "Ir-ahn" might miss the pun.
Folks who pronounce it "I-ran" got the joke.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @09:26PM
...and Persia was what Iran was called through most of history.
Trivia: We get the chess term "checkmate" from the Persian for "The king is dead" ("Shah mort").
More trivia: Though the country is majority Islamic, the language of Iran isn't Arabic; it's Farsi.
There's also been a bunch of squabbling over whether the body of water should be called the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @10:41PM (1 child)
Where do folks that pronounce it "I-raq" keeps their servers?
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday November 23 2017, @11:44PM
Sounds like you'll have to talk to your local Apple Genius for the answer to that one.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Thursday November 23 2017, @10:51PM
Ajit the Idjit wants you to have less for more. I wonder, is he still working for Verizon or just on their payroll.
MAG(for corporations)A.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday November 23 2017, @10:32PM
If you happened to look out of your window and saw a flock of seagulls as you read it, it might help with the joke.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:58PM
Yes, you are correct. I think they're in need of a little - heh - "regime change," so to speak.
Attack Iran? Yes, Zionist master, I do whatever you say. Forward, march!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:17PM (3 children)
Can't you just run a terminal to your Iranian service?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:20PM (2 children)
No, I rather like the idea of you moving to Iran.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:41PM (1 child)
You're so funny! You know so little...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:57PM
Oh, so you're in Iran already?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @07:53PM
No thanks. What I do is pay for the cheapest internet access I can find: $20 gets me ISDN speeds, good enough for email and SSH. Then I choose to live in an area of high population density and piggyback off all of the neighbors for my high bandwidth needs like streaming movies.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @07:59PM (1 child)
There needs to be one world price for internet. Workers of the world unite and fix prices everywhere. Vote socialist. Socialism will solve everything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:46PM
fix prices
Sounds like Liberal Democracy to me.
Here's Socialism: The collective ownership of the means of production by The Workers.
In this context, Socialism would be building your own cooperative ISP.
German Village Expanding Self-Built Broadband Network [soylentnews.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:22PM
You're over 12, you serve army.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:30PM
Nah, it's like running Windows:
what is the TCO? Fighting for internet freedom seems like it would probably be a harder slog over there.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:37PM (5 children)
Classy article. It ignores public funding and the value of what's being bought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23 2017, @09:07PM (1 child)
This is the kind of thing that I was hoping would be spawned by this submission.
Overt censorship has garnered a lot of comments so far.
Subsidies and attached strings are indeed another aspect.
...and kudos to bzipitidoo, below us in the (meta)thread, for digging into the comments at El Reg and finding a nugget.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 23 2017, @09:16PM
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday November 23 2017, @09:36PM
Sometimes I give Iran a hard time. But they got control over their Internet. We need to do the same, or we’re not going to have a country. Right now, it’s like a sieve. It’s like water pouring through. It’s ridiculous.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday November 23 2017, @10:03PM
At least they got some sort of access for their money.
The US throws taxpayer money at ISP's and doesn't even get what they paid for. [techdirt.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @06:33AM
Only sites with pornography content are filtered, the rest is like just our internet and what you're saying is something else ( intranet is for national internet which they can buy separately and I think it's more expensive than the internet itself ).
(Score: 5, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:52PM
With prices of $66.17 and $55.08 respectively. Have to dig to get those numbers. RTFA isn't enough. In the comments of the article, some kind person posted a link to a Google Docs spreadsheet, here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oH5Ham4Yn8x80ma0j_Z5SnOcQyUIsbPtzmcc0fvUEeI/edit#gid=216699028 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday November 23 2017, @09:12PM
To me, top quality is more important than cost. I have a 500 Mbit/s download and upload connection which was down shortly only recently for the first time in many years. It's $75 a month, no caps. Plus my provider refuses to block anything except when ordered by a court of law.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 24 2017, @07:15AM
Affordability is much more important than raw costs. Sure, Internet is cheap in Ukraine, but it's still expensive if you consider average wages there. So maybe this should be affordability index - average cost compared to average wage.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Friday November 24 2017, @01:48PM
Is the price rated against speed/bandwidth? Are you paying 5$ for 1MB in Iran, but 40$ for 260MB in the UK?