Singapore has second-most affordable internet in the world, says new report
Beats everyone else in Southeast Asia.
With the blazing fast 5G networks and up to 10Gbps home broadband, Singapore's internet affordability is ranked second in the world.
The island-state beat out high-tech countries such as South Korea and Japan, according to a report by VPN service provider, Surfshark, which ranked 117 countries on internet affordability.
To derive just which countries were overpaying for their internet access, Surfshark compiled each countries internet speeds and then divided it by affordability to derive what it calls the Internet Value index.
Singapore scored 8.5x above the global average, while neighbours Malaysia were at 1.5x. For comparison, South Korea and Japan offered affordable internet at 2.3x and 2.0x respectively above the global average.
Meanwhile, Indonesia's internet is relatively expensive, with an 8.7x score below average. Likewise, internet access in the Philippines is also relatively expensive at 6.2x below average.
Thailand also has pretty affordable internet access, at 1.5x the average.
Down under, Australia and New Zealand, too, have pretty affordable internet at 3.5x and 1.6x above average.
While the graph above shows that Oceania is the most affordable region, the report doesn't factor in the other 12 countries, such as Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea actually has a larger population than New Zealand, so it's surprising that it was left out.
What does internet access cost in Singapore and Malaysia?
In Singapore, the cheapest 1Gbps plan is S$40 a month on a 24-month contract. You can also get a 300Mbps plan for S$29.
Meanwhile, Malaysia has announced a 30Mbps plan for RM$69 (~S$21).
One reason Singapore can offer such high speeds at competitive rates is due to its 2011 Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network initiative, which deployed a ultra-high speed fibre network to all physical addresses in Singapore with 1Gbps speeds.
Interestingly, the most affordable country in the world is Israel, which offers internet access at prices that were 9.1x more than the global average.
Furthermore, 61 per cent of people worldwide over pay for their internet, with countries in the African continent overpaying the most.
Places like Cameroon and Uganda are 94x and 100x below the average respectively.
Yemen, which is still undergoing a civil war, had the least affordable internet, at 202x below the global average.
You can read the report here, or check out the data here.
Aloysius Low is an ex-CNET editor with more than 15 years of experience. He's really into cats and is currently reviewing products at canbuyornot.com
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