Broadband: Access Denied

Broadband service is available worldwide, but it is beyond most people’s budget.

Saudi Arabia: $571.82/100 Kbps
Expect to shell out 58% of the average monthly salary for DSL. Not surprisingly, only about 0.1% percent of the population has a connection.

Mozambique: $361.83/100 Kbps
The nation’s civil war is long over but a high-speed connection costs as much as a private army: 1,400 times the average monthly wage.

Pakistan: $106.98/100 Kbps
Local bloggers incensed President Pervez Musharraf’s support of the Us must pay nearly twice the average income to have their say.

Kazakhstan: $52.68/100 Kbps
The broadband prices, it’s nice? Not so much/ The 2,000 Kazakhstani users must sacrifice one-fifth of the average monthly salary for access.

Bolivia: $39.06/100 Kbps
There are only about 11,000 broadband customers in Bolivia, but each forks over nearly half of the average monthly wage to get online.

Russia: $28.13/100 Kbps
The 1.6 million users who may want to stream President Putin’s latest judo moves surrender 8% of the average pay for the privilege.

Nicaragua: $14.65/100 Kbps
No wonder this Central American country has only 6,600 high-speed customers, access costs a fifth of the average monthly paycheck.

United States: $0.49/100 Kbps
The nearly 60 million broadband subscribers in the US typically pay 0.01% of their average monthly salary for a connection.

Netherlands: $0.14/100 Kbps
Toptoe through the tulips and you will find 4.1 million broadband customers enjoying some of the lowest prices on the planet.

South Korea: $0.08/100 Kbps
South Korea boasts 12.2 million braodband users, some of the world’s highest speeds, and low prices, second only to Japan.

Source: Wired (Sep. 2007)