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by Raphmedia 3743 days ago
France is the size of my backyard. Of course the cost of infrastructure & maintenance is going to be lower.

That being said, yes, we are getting very bad price on that side of the ocean because of price inflation.

1 comments

Always the same excuse that doesn't even hold up.

  * US population density: 35/km2
  * Finland population density: 18/km2
It's not about the size of the country, it's because in Europe the infrastructure owners are required to let others in [1]. In US the operators are natural monopolies with very little incentives for competition.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operato...

Finland has a higher proportion of urban residents than the US. The US is also known for its huge number of small and mid-sized cities and population spread all over the country, whereas (proportionately) more of Finland is essentially empty.
That may be true but doesn't really factor in to the discussion of coverage and competition: even if essentially empty, Finland is still covered. Coverage maps for the two biggest operators:

* Sonera: http://www.sonera.fi/asiakastuki/verkkokartat/kuuluvuuskartt...

* Elisa: http://elisa.fi/kuuluvuus

Notice how 4G already covers almost half of Finland, and 3G basically everything excluding larger swaths of forest.

I am from Canada.

Our population density is 3.7/km2 and infrastructure owners are also required to let other in. The prices are still very high.

The coverage is big and winter put a big load on the infrastructure.