The average price of 1 gigabyte (gb) of mobile data in Belgium last year was €3.00 – 13 times more expensive than in France (€0.23), according to a study published by comparison site Hellosafe on Tuesday.
Data prices in Belgium are far more than all its neighbours. In Germany, data costs €2.66/gb; in Luxembourg €2.00/gb; and in the Netherlands €1.89/gb. Elsewhere in the European Union prices are even lower. In Italy 1gb of data costs just €0.12 – 25 less than in Belgium and 136 times less than in Yemen, which is the most expensive country for data in the world at €16.51.
Other extremely expensive countries for web browsing on a mobile device are Botswana (€15.48), Turkmenistan (€14.21), and Togo (€12.89).
In the top 10 most expensive countries, there are also developed countries such as South Korea (€12.55) and Switzerland (€7.32).
The price of data can also vary on the sub-national level. On the island of Saint Helena, a British overseas territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean, 1gb of data costs a staggering €41.05. In the Falkland Islands, the price is €38.44/gb.
The cheapest mobile internet in the world can be found in Israel, where 1/gb costs just €0.04.
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The price of mobile data can be influenced by a number of factors, Hellosafe explains, such as the cost of maintaining the necessary infrastructure and the level of competition between service providers.
In Belgium, high prices have been blamed on a lack of competition in the telecommunications industry. New 5G operators in Belgium could bring down prices by as much as 20%, Federal Telecom Minister Petra De Sutter said in June 2022.
