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Who actually pays the most for broadband internet

Canadians pay less for internet than Americans (Getty)
Canadians pay less for internet than Americans (Getty)

Canadians love to complain about high internet costs, but it turns out Americans actually pay more for broadband.

British comparison site Cable.co.uk ranked average phone prices by country. It found Canadians pay US$57 dollars on average a month for broadband — putting it in 97th place for affordability.

Canada is the cheapest in North America, which is generally expensive.

“Both Greenland and Bermuda can blame their expensive packages on geography and uptake, but what about the United States? At US$69 on average and coming in at 119th place worldwide, one would expect American packages to be considerably cheaper,” reads the report.

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“But while broadband in the United States is widely available and uptake is high, lack of competition in the marketplace means Americans pay far more than they should, compared to much of the rest of the world.”

Theoretically, rates should be lower in Canada and the U.S. because their economies are mature and physical landlines are already in place. The opposite is true when looking at the five most expensive countries, Burkina Faso (US$651.72), Laos (US$818.13), Namibia (US$1117.87), Mauritania (US$1368.72), and Papua New Guinea (US$1849.09).

To make matters worse, people in those countries aren’t getting what they pay for because connections are so poor.

“All of them average less than 5Mbps, which is too slow to stream an HD movie – something you're sure to want if you're paying US$500 or more for your broadband every month,” reads the report.

“Mauritania, the most expensive country recorded in this year's study, is also one of the slowest in the world, offering average speeds of just 0.7Mbps – too slow even for standard definition video.”

The countries with the five cheapest packages are Syria (US$2.42), Ukraine (US$2.16), Iran (US$1.87), Venezuela (US$1.68), and Kyrgystan (US$1.27). Although connections are significantly faster compared to the five most expensive, the savings come at the cost of speed.

Ukraine is an exception, where even the cheapest packages offer 20Mbps.

Russia is also cheap and fast, offering 250Mbps packages for as little as US$13.51 a month.

Jessy Bains is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jessysbains.

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