As the title says, WiFi could be 50$ per month even though it’s like 100GB whilst a mobile data charge of that cost would get like 5GB of internet?
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Because they can. You can only send so much data per cell tower. They more people per tower, the less data each person gets as their “slice”. They try and add data caps and limit the overall data used so when people do try and use it, they get an overall larger slice.
On “WiFi” and home internet, each house gets its own dedicated link like the cell tower has but there are far fewer people to split the data with
Over short distances, with little interference, and with few devices, sending data via radio waves is comparatively cheap. Over longer distances, with lots of interference, to many devices, and with the devices constantly leaving one cell tower’s area and switching to another, it gets much more expensive.
Sending the data to your house or business using a cable or fiber is pretty cheap. Once it reaches your location, you can then use the fairly cheap WiFi to send it to the small number of devices at your location. At short distances you can also work around or overcome interference pretty easily as well.
Mobile data has to work with a lot more devices, in a much noisier environment, with the devices jumping from one tower to another all the time, and at much greater distances than WiFi. As a result, it is a lot more expensive.
Wifi is through a physical connection. There’s a wired connection from your modem, to the provider hub somewhere in your neighbourhood, which connects via wires to the provider. So you’re paying for the convenience of a provider having this infrastructure in place to send a signal that ends at your modem. Because this technology is 30 years old, the charges for this are much lower.
Mobile data operates through cell phone towers & repeaters. The wireless bandwidth is auctioned off each year and companies bid lots of money to own certain spectrum. Just like the first example, you’re paying for the convenience of a company to put in cell towers in an entire country (like the USA), so that you can watch Youtube videos anywhere you please.
So wireless data is more expensive even for the companies to purchase & operate on, but the main reason is profit. 3-5 companies own most of the wireless spectrum in most cities or countries, and can basically charge whatever they want. If you don’t want to go with Provider 1’s mobile data coverage, you can try Provider 2’s mobile data coverage, but there aren’t many providers so your choices are limited. As a result they can charge a lot.
Wireless data coverage & speed has advanced a lot within the last 5-7 years. Eventually it will become as cheap as wired home/business internet. Even 7 years ago, you couldn’t watch most HD youtube videos. Now even in the country, I can watch HD youtube videos without any lag.
So basically, a few companies own the infrastructure & charge a lot for it. It does cost them a lot to even own these wireless frequencies, but obviously a lot of profit is built in.
If a company is charging you for Wi-Fi, then there’s a serious problem.
See if you’re able to get your own router to connect to your home internet connection.
First off, wifi is just the wireless signal between your internet router/modem inside your house and your device. Prior to that, the data travels through cables of some sort — typically the same cable that brings cable TV. Because the infrastructure is in large part piggybacking on existing infrastructure and doesn’t have to accommodate with shifts in demand like cell towers might (think of a tower near a stadium or in a busy downtown at rush hour vs. demands when there aren’t events of it’s a weekend and workers aren’t around).
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