[dopidopHN]

Just to give you additional data point with cell phone prices.

I’m French but I’m living in the Us since a decade or so.

Cell phone prices are considerably cheaper in France ( €30 gets you unlimited everything on mobile and €80 is a combo for fiber + mobile plan )

But yet, that a heavily regulated market. If I’m correct there is 5 licences. All other companies have to buy and resell bandwidth thought those 5 licence. They tend to be French company.

Here I pay close to $200 total for the same service ( actually lesser service, I can’t have fiber where I live )

Maybe those expensive price are not due to that regulation? ( or maybe it is. I don’t know, but I wanted to give you a counter example )

[kevinskii]

Excellent points, but perhaps part of the reason for the price difference is because the US population is much more geographically dispersed, so the infrastructure costs are much higher.

[swexbe]

Most people live in metro areas.

[ghaff]

It depends how you define metro area. The US census 80% urban has a very broad definition of urban. My 7000 person town with many houses on dozens of acres is classified as urban because it’s within 50 miles of a major city and near some smaller ones.

[HWR_14]

30 euro seems reasonable. In the US you can get unlimited everything for $30 a month (well, after some amount of data in the gigs I think it downgrades from 5G in the fine print).

[dopidopHN]

Maybe I missed that, what carrier do you have in mind?

[HWR_14]

There are a lot. Mint Mobile is $30/mo for unlimited if you pay for a year at once (a little more if you pay monthly). Visible is $30/mo but goes from 5G to 4G after 50GB (more expensive options have higher caps). There are lot of other ones out there, mostly trying to get people in the $20 range but with smaller limits on total data.

[dopidopHN]

Right right right, my bad.

Now I remember why I switched from cricket. From time to time, I need data in Europe. On my US phone. That being said I should just switch when appropriate.

Thanks for reminding that.

I took the opportunity to check what the prices are in France now.

€20/month, and €10/month if you bundle it with your internet connection. ( bringing to a total of €40 )

I just checked the operator that historically has the better price. ( free.fr )

[HWR_14]

You're welcome for the reminder. People forget those alternatives exist.

Apparently Mint offers a US/Canada/Mexico plan for only a little more.

But when I travel internationally, I get a prepaid SIM when I land. It's cheap enough.

[woobar]

Mint MVO on T-Mo network

https://www.mintmobile.com/plans/