OECD Mobile Broadband Users Paying 4% Less for Speeds Up 123%

Mobile Internet access users in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development areas are paying less for access to faster connections, the most recent mobile broadband price benchmarking results from Strategy Analytics shows.

The average monthly cost for a tablet user needing 2 GB per month has fallen four percent since the same period last year, to USD PPP 17.79, while average advertised speed for the same basket has risen by 123 percent, to 26 Mbps.

For a laptop user requiring 5 GB per month, the cost has fallen by nine percent, and currently averages USD PPP 25.24, while the speed has risen by 35 percent over the year, and now stands at just under 24 Mbps.

The data was generated by a survey of 3,549 SIM-only, modem, laptop and tablet plans from 107 mobile network operators in 34 OECD countries.

SIM-only plans account for around 25 percent of all plans covered as part of the survey, suggesting those accounts are used by consumers in addition to their primary service.

Some 51 percent of all plans have an advertised maximum download speed of 20 Mbps and above. About 31 percent of all plans are 4G Long Term Evolution tariffs, an increase of about three percent since June 2013.

Also, some 29 percent of all offerings include WiFi or public hotspot access.