[levinet]

Few simple answers off the top of my head:

Electricity is generally more expensive in Australia than US/Europe

Internet (consumer and business) is more expensive, huge area to cover with low population density

Most DCs are located in Sydney and Melbourne where rent/land and other costs are a lot higher than less populated parts of the country

[mingabunga]

Ok, I can understand the price of renting the box, but bandwidth seems unreasonably expensive.

[levinet]

Local bandwidth in Australia is generally more expensive than Europe or USA because we have a huge area to cover and a relatively low population. Also because of this the infrastructure that does exist is held by a handful of companies who can pretty much dictate the price.

International bandwidth is hugely expensive in Australia, everything goes by expensive undersea cables. While both the US and Europe have bordering countries where most of traffic is likely to go. Also similarly with local infrastructure, it's all owned by just a handful of companies who can strong arm providers.

Also in reference to your original question, it sounds like the VPS provider your using doesn't separate local vs. international traffic, so they're probably assuming most of it will be international and are charging on the higher end of the scale.

I think BinaryLane charges a bit less at around $1 per 10GB. There's probably cheaper providers out there but YMMV.

[joshschreuder]

> International bandwidth is hugely expensive in Australia, everything goes by expensive undersea cables

I have heard this quite a bit, but why is it hugely expensive for this reason? Is it because of the maintenance of the undersea cables or recouping initial construction costs?

[NeutronBoy]

It just all adds up:

- First world, bandwidth hungry nation.

- Low population to recoup costs from.

- Very low population density so transit across the country isn't super economical (related to above)

- Expensive to build transit because it's all underwater cable, no easy cross-border land-based fiber.

[lsiebert]

I expect that they are passing on the cast of laying oceanic cable as well.