Why is bandwidth Costly in India ?

Hello,

Why is there a big difference in the cost of Bandwidth in India and US ?

Any Ideas ?

 

I'm not sure about India. But I have assumptions to why bandwidth is costlier in Malaysia. Monopolization. In Malaysia, TM is the monopoly of internet service providers. Despite having clients of over 1 million, Malaysians have not seen any price reductions in Internet plans offered by TM. TM also wholesales bandwidth all over Malaysia. We pay a higher amount of price for a slower Internet package compared to neighboring countries like Singapore and Thailand.

In countries like US, there's more than 1 internet service providers, so the competition is tough. Providers naturally have wage price wars in order to win more customers. So, as expected, the prices of bandwidth would be considerably lower than say, Malaysia.

 

Bandwidth costs money because

1. Maintainence - Like you identified, if something goes wrong there has to be a crew to fix it.

2. Limited resources - There isn't infinite bandwidth available. Hence, people must 'pay' to use it.

3. No cost to transfer electrons - While you maybe right about the low cost of transferring electrons, it does consume 'some power'. Incrementally that amounts to significant costs

4. Upgradation of networks - Networks and bandwidth must be constantly upgraded to keep up with demand. The research and development around it is supported by charging for bandwidth