I would take those numbers with a large grain of salt at the very least.
By default, it shows the costs when using the cheapest post-paid plan with at least 500MB allowance for at least 30 days – cheapest in absolute terms, not per GB.
You can toggle the option to show prepaid plans with the same parameters (at least 500 MB for at least 30 days).
But since it takes data from the ITU and not from the real market, the numbers do indeed seem inflated. One of the cheapest (in absolute terms) prepaid plans for mobile internet in Germany is AldiTalk at 4€/1GB/4 weeks, so that the pageload should cost even less than 1ct (0.0056 EUR). Similarly, your Telekom plans are for 4 weeks. Maybe they've excluded these plan because it's not for at least 30 days.
If a service provider offers a $20/month plan with 500 MB of data, their $40/month plan will almost certainly offer a lot more than 1000 MB. The cheapest plans are usually designed specifically for people who don't plan to use a significant amount of data.
At my rate, reddit.com should cost $0.0002363
Unrelated, wow, thank you for reminding me how badly we're getting screwed in Canada :). Approximately $90 CDN here for a 15GB soft-cap with "unlimited" slow usage beyond that.
Two things:
1. The data is in the process of being updated. Prices change quickly and from the trend of past changes I fully expect these prices to drop as soon as I make the change.
2. While the ITU (and other data sources) try their best to look at all sources, I have to take them at their word. I've heard several times that they seem to have overlooked plan A or plan B, so it doesn't surprise me if there are other plans lurking out there.
Long-story short, it's absolutely best to consider this as a gauge/appromixation, rather than a scientific exact number.
The site also says "Prices were collected from the operator with the largest marketshare in the country" but follows it with "Because these numbers are based on the least expensive plan, they are best case scenarios." which doesn't logically follow. But going with that, the largest carrier in the US is apparently AT&T, and just the first plan on their site offers a 4GB plan at $50, or ≈$12.50 / GiB, which is an order of magnitude lower than the figure on the site?
For example your calculation is that 1.39 MB costs Canadians 0.17, that would mean 1 GB costs Canadians 125 US dollars. There isn't a single plan in Canada that charges 125 dollars for 1 GB of data.
This isn't just a minor inaccuracy of +/-10%, this is off by literally a factor that's closer to 15-20x.
So these prices often reflect the few options that are (visibly) available for tourists.
Most tourists still pick one of the shitty providers available at the airport or train station and go with that. Some of them provide a faster verification do you can walk out having internet, in Austria if you buy internet at a supermarket (it's uncomplicated there) it can take a few hours to verify.
Or Italy, if you arrive in Venedig you find ads for internet packages everywhere. I actually needed to go to the mainland to buy a a normal SIM. As no one on the island acknowledged the cheaper packages available.
My point is, it's complicated
Source: I've spent months (if not years) with my laptop In Europe and Asia and internet always was the #1 priority. I also do not know if things are better today
They have short-term or no-contract options at low prices, and often have a website in English.
Also what is short? In Austria I get a new prepaid for every few days I stay (because uncomplicated and cheap). In the Netherlands libera was the only real option even thought I was there for 2 months.
Edit:// I spent over 200€ on prepaid internet that 2 months I was in the Netherlands. A always cancel contract would have costed I think about 20$ a month for unlimited (and way faster) internet
In the EU there are still some countries where you can buy SIM cards without ID so you can just order one of those online and then use roaming, which does not have additional charges within the EU.
Also roaming is a good point. 5 years ago when I was active travelling this was no option yet as only contracts had proper roaming. Cheap roaming in the EU is basically new, and some ex. Switzerland is mostly still excluded
These cost analyses are always popular for people to brag about how much cheaper their country's data plans or broadband speeds are, but I seriously doubt that many Canadian Redditors are paying $0.17 for every page load. Simply browsing the front page and clicking on a few comment sections could cost $10 or more. Doesn't pass the sniff test.
Even additional data (if you go over plan limits), which is by far the most expensive way to get data, is less than that, it's $104 per GB with my provider.
> Because these numbers are based on the least expensive plan, they are best case scenarios.
Which is... a weird statement. Best case scenario for what? The cheapest plan is the best case if you wanted to access the site once per billing period. But then price per visit is the cost of plan? I don't know what they're trying to say here.
The only thing required to buy a SIM is a passport so every foreigner can buy one.
Not a great deal if you ask me. For example Iliad is offering 120GB/€9.99.