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Comparing Internet Cafe Rates Worldwide
Posted by
simoniker
on Fri Jul 02, 2004 01:18 PM
from the eating-out-sometimes-expensive dept.
from the eating-out-sometimes-expensive dept.
tcd004 writes "I recently began compiling the hourly rates from Internet cafes around the world into a map. The result reveals wildly different prices, even in countries with similar economic conditions and technological development. This often puts access out of reach for large populations in developing countries who live on less than $1 per day. It seems government policies and telecom deregulation (in countries like Nigeria) are often the strongest forces determining a cafe's hourly rates. If you want to do some of your own rate hunting, take a look at sites like Cybercafes.com."
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Government Subsidies (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Government Subsidies (Score:5, Funny)
I take it Ghana has never heard of AOL.
Parent
Re:Government Subsidies (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Segway? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you mean subsidies are an expensive toy which gets you to the destination, but you could far more cheaply, and with the same ease, do the same thing some other way? Then yeah, they do make great Segways [segway.com] to those things.
(It's spelled "segue" [reference.com], people. That said, you make a valid point -- either (Seg)way.)
that's not completely true (Score:3, Informative)
The reasons for low prices, however maybe related to the fact that minors go to internet cafes a lot to play Counter Strike, GTA etc. Obviously this is because, in Turkey, many houses don't have computer. As the minors are the main customer group, and they cannot effort expensive prices, I think math is clear.
I should also mention that, my fri
ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF (Score:5, Funny)
Speaking of which (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I know that spammers use Internet cafes to do their dirty deeds, but the spam-filters should somehow have the ability to detect a genuine e-m
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
No Korea? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice Cybercafe Listing (Score:5, Informative)
The site doesn't even have a function to add or modify listings. All it has is a banner ad for cheese!
Globe199
Re:Nice Cybercafe Listing (Score:3, Funny)
I hear the site is located in Wisconsin...
On a side note: I checked for Cybercafes in India, and the very first entry says:
ONLY CYBER CLUB WHO CARES FOR ITS CUSTOMERS & DOES NOT CHEAT.
I'm glad they cleared that up..
I walk by several Internet cafés every day... (Score:4, Interesting)
Prices at Internet cafés are perhaps more interesting for tourists than anyone else. Then again, isn't the point of being on holiday to get away from it all, including (and especially?) the computer?
In countries with $1/day salaries (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:In countries with $1/day salaries (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:In countries with $1/day salaries (Score:3, Insightful)
In order to have growth, access to the rest of the world is pretty much a prerequisite, as is some element of a knowledge economy. For these to occur, access to the Internet is essential the way that the telephone was 50 years ago.
So Inter
eZinternet Cafe (Score:5, Interesting)
Australia? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never seen internet cafe rates that high here, the most I've paid is $5AUS an hour, and that was in a music store that also provided free coffee.
I'd suggest... (Score:4, Insightful)
1) In the short- and medium-term, the question is what kind of access middle-class and upper-class people have. There seems to be some obsession with getting illiterate farmers technology that the average person in wealthy countries doesn't have, but to my mind that's far less relevant than the overall level of computer use and access.
2) This analysis also ignores numbers. A single, dirt-cheap cyber-cafe provides far less access than 50 expensive, well-maintained ones, and it's the higher prices that allow greater numbers and decent tech and maintenance. Again, I suspect I'm going against the political grain of that site by saying so.
Numbers are way off for India (Score:5, Informative)
That said, maybe its different in smaller cities where cable/DSL isn't available, adn competition hasn't driven down ISP charges as much
Re:Numbers are way off for India (Score:3, Funny)
In south Indian cities you can have fast internet for about 20 Rs an hour, that's less than half a dollar. In smaller cities and towns it's about the same rate, even cheaper, but then the connections are *really slow*.
Not accurate (Score:5, Informative)
Several questions... (Score:4, Insightful)
The page linked to from "under $1 a day" does not carry information/statistics about specific countries, but provides only an overview by continent. I'm a little skeptical about the "Percentage of population living below $1.00" - according to the map, only 5 countries: Nicaragua, India, Namibia, Ghana and Kenya qualify as "dark red". I would suspect this is not the case - Pakistan and other fareastern countries for example should be in this range, rather than the green (developed) range.
And again, I'm not sure how useful the "under $1.00 per day" statistic is, because it most certainly does not take into consideration, the standard of living - a loaf of bread costs about $2.00 in the US and 25c in other countries I know.
Just my vulcan $0.02.
Some of these prices are misleadingly high (Score:5, Informative)
The implication is what? (Score:3, Funny)
And as for the relationship between price and government policy, I would be more interested to see what the relationship is between government policy in new areas like the Internet vs the government policy in general.
In Kazakstan, the capital had a couple of Cafes that went for $1 or 2 / hour. It made life much more bearable there when the only English is the occasional English language video on the TV.
Serving Locals or Tourists...? (Score:5, Informative)
Just looking at the numbers, the article seems to capture non-tourist prices. But it's important not to forget that prices are often not based on real cost, but on the customer's willingness to pay.
Screw cyber cafes (Score:5, Informative)
Responses (Score:5, Interesting)
1. "Hey, I was in X country and the price was cheaper/more expensive!"
Yes, prices vary dramatically across nearly every country. When we compiled this data we were seeking out numbers that best represented the most common price in a particular country. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, you can pay $15 U.S for access if you want, but you can also find places who offer it for $3. These numbers are in no way meant to accuraly represent every price of every internet cafe in every country.
2. What do the grey areas represent? Aren't there more countries with high poverty levels?
Grey countries were not included in this survey. Data may have existed for them, but this was originally published in print, and we had a limted amount of space. And yes, many, many other countries live on less than $1 per day. We simply picked a representative sampling.
3. Why do people who live on $1 per day need to worry about internet access?
Good question. First of all, don't literally think of "$1 per day" to mean just that. The point of this exercise was to show that Cafe prices don't often serve their local populations, due to the fact that they're too expensive. The $1 figure is simply an effective way to point out countries with large populations of people living in poverty.
Why do poor people need the internet? Well, often the internet is considered to be a great democratizing and equalizing force. The people who most need equalizing are people who live in poverty. If they can't afford to get on the internet, then how is it improving their lives? Maybe through indirect means?
In any case, our goal was simply to inspire people to ask questions like these. We seem to have been successful. Thanks for your comments!
Tcd004
Re:Responses (Score:5, Interesting)
purchase an hour of Internet cafe.
I.e. in the U.S.A. (average wage ~ $15/hour), the cost would be 0.3 hours. In Namibia (average wage
~ $1/hour) the cost would be 2.5 hours, etc.
Parent
In regards to price collection: (Score:3, Informative)
We collected prices by calling, visiting cafes, emailing, and via cafes' published rates on the internet.
There is no guarantee that all of our prices are perfect repesentations. Even sampling 20 or 30 cafes in a country that houses 20,000 is too limited of a sample to be called definitive.
In some cases, we may reevaluate our data if we can get solid evidence that our prices are wrong. Again, this is a piece meant to illustrate the divides between many countries and
Re:In regards to price collection: (Score:3, Informative)
Hi, I've misinterpreted my data into a "story" (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, internet cafe rates put internet access (through a cafe anyway) outside the reach of large populations of AMERICANS. Newsflash: Stuff isn't free, and poor people can't buy non-essential stuff.
Slashdot: The Obvious for Nerds. Stuff any idiot with a little bit of common sense already knows.
How old is this information? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How old is this information? (Score:4, Informative)
Its a cobweb site. Nothing to see here, move along, move along. There will be a repost of this article over the weekend by CmdrTaco.
the AC
Parent
Rate in Uzbekistan (Score:5, Informative)
The prices are all wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Easy in London (Score:4, Informative)
I paid about 10 UK pounds (about $18 or something) for a week at Easy Internet Cafe in London a few years ago. No time limit other than that (they closed at 2AM).
The rates for Sweden are weird. (Score:3, Informative)
A: Way too old. It hasn't cost that much on average for several years now.
B: Only sampled from some particular hotels etc, that aren't internet cafés as such.
C: Made up.
Matrix, a large internet café in Stockholm charges around $4/hour for non-members. They also have some packages where it becomes cheaper. Dragons Lair charges around $2/hour. Nexuz about 2-4, depending on time etc.
Same thing with other places around Sweden.
Mexico and Nigeria (Score:3, Interesting)
Are we really sure we want any more Nigerians on the internet? Haven't they abused it enough?
But on a more serious note, back in '98, I helped open the first two internet cafes in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Playa is a pretty big tourist destination these days. At the time, there was only one ISP in town (which I assisted at off an on as well). We started off sharing a 56k dial-up line with 8 computers at each cafe. When we first opened, we were charging a peso a minute, which is roughly $0.10/min. We were making a killing.
Well, word got out we were making bank and within 1 year of the first cafe opening, there were 26 of them in town. Then the price wars began and we eventually ended up at around 10 pesos/hr (about $1.00/hr).
The two owners of the first cafe split (because one was an alcoholic and he spent most of the company money on the most expensive booze he could find). That first cafe went out of business within a few months. Largely because of the alcoholic owner, partly because of the mice, scorpions, and other things that made it just a nasty place. But in fact, a lot of the cafes that appeared in that first year went out of business because of the price wars.
Our second cafe ended up surviving the war (and is still around today, visit Atomic Cafe on Calle 8 con Avenida 5), but largely because we made internet a secondary concern and concentrated on the bar business. There are still a couple of places that offer exclusively internet access and I have no idea how they survive. Most of the rest that survived ended up doing other things.
Anyway, that's my internet cafe story. Glad to be out of that business now. The early days were fun, though.
by country only? (Score:3, Informative)
In Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz, the hourly rate is about 50 cents of a dollar. There are even some places that charge by the minute, 12 cents of a peso for a minute (which amounts to about 63 cents of a dollar, for a whole hour).
So, is this chart showing the price for the most expensive rate found in the country, or for an average, or what?
Does anybody know if the rates shown for other countries are as inaccurate as the rate for Mexico?
Ecuador (Score:3, Informative)
Chile price inaccurate (Score:4, Informative)
In Santiago (the capital), internet access is around 400-600 pesos per hour. US$1 = CLP$650, so we are talking 60 - 90 US cents. I've also seen these rates on the beach side towns and in the south (on the Island of Chiloe, currently isolated from the mainland due to band weather, but still with reasonably priced internet).
In places like San Pedro de Atacama in the North and Puerto Natales in the South, both remote places heavily infested with gringo touriests, you might push $1000 an hour, so US$1.50 max.
The Best Price Point For Access (Score:3, Interesting)
$0
www.personaltelco.net
How do we do this? Its a little something called Community and it seems to be a far more powerfull force in this town then all the T-mobile run hotspots combined.
Welcome to Portland.
-tomhiggins
www.personaltelco.net
Its cheap here! (some things) (Score:4, Informative)
Gasoline costs 0.03$ per liter (gasoline is cheaper than coke and water).
A BigMac costs 2$ (too expensive for the crap you get).
A Whoper costs 3$ (this is a good meal).
A Grand Cherokee Limited 2004 costs NaN$ (30,000$ basic model, ouch!)
BTW, the minimum wage is 90$ a month, a graduated computer engineer (at least me!) makes 6,000$ a year.
South Korea (Score:5, Interesting)
Over here in Oslo, I see lots of Internet cafés and they're almost always empty.
Parent
Re:South Korea (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is smoking allowed? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can smoke all you want... do it in a space suit so you don't stink up the place for the rest of us, mm kay?
Re:Hm.. (Score:5, Funny)
On the other hand, it does make me feel even better about baiting the scammers. Every minute wasted sending me email (even more when they send me silly pictures of themselves dumping water on their heads) is money that they've lost.
Parent
Re:Europe (Score:3, Informative)
Not necessarily. I know where a lot of Internet cafés are located in Oslo, but I have no idea what they charge. If someone on one of the travel boards I'm on asked me for prices of Internet cafés in Oslo, I'd investigate for them. Other than that, I have no reason to know, and wouldn't be able to help someone who asked me on the street.
Re:No way Argentina costs U$3!! (Score:3, Informative)
In Bariloche... read tourist trap.. I paid around US 50c an hour.. downtown, in amongst all the chocolate shops..
Answers (Score:4, Informative)
The $1 figure is from the United Nations Millenium Development Goals Indicators database.
Parent