On Monday I left for Dublin, lots of airport time gave me plenty of time to read Wired! There was an interesting article on broadband (Access Denied).
They claim that only 3 percent of the world’s population has broadband. They also gave cost of bandwidth in various places in the world and the percentage of local average salary that would be required to buy broadband locally:
| County | Cost per Kbps | Total Subscribers | Percentage of Monthly Salary |
| South Korea | $0.08 | 12.2 million | |
| Netherlands | $0.14 | 4.1 million | |
| US | $0.49 | 60 million | .01 |
| Nicaragua | $14.65 | 6,600 | 20 |
| Russia | $28.13 | 1.6 million | 8 |
| Bolivia | $39.06 | 11,000 | 50 |
| Pakistan | $106.98 | 2 | |
| Mozambique | $361.83 | 1,400 times the average salary | |
| Saudi Arabia | $571.82 | .1 percent of population | 58 |
I’m not sure yet what the cost of broadband in Dublin is going to be. I had heard from everyone that it would take 1-2 days to get broadband. Unfortunately that isn’t the case. It will be 5-10 days. I’ll report more when it’s actually installed.
The good news is that even out in the suburbs, there is free WiFi access in the library – and a place to plug in a laptop. So that’s been a life saver.
