T-Mobile Hungary is in the process of rolling out a 21 Mbps HSPA+ network. They say that by the end of August over 200 locations will have access to it. That bit of news doesn’t really matter to most of you, what does matter is that they’ve decided to go with a well established business model in the wired broadband world for their new network, meaning that if you want more speed, you’re going to have to pay. The only other operator we know that does this is Finnish operator Saunalahti, who offers unlimited data, but has multiple speed tiers ranging from 4.90 Euros per month for 500 kilobit per second speeds to 13.90 Euros per month for no speed cap at all. Actually, now that we think about it, Simple Mobile, an American mobile virtual network operator, also has speed tiers thanks to their new $50 unlimited plan which gives customers unlimited talk, text, and internet, but they’re stuck using EDGE. If you want 3G then you need to pony up an extra $10 per month.
We don’t know why the rest of the world isn’t catching up to this. It’s bad enough that every American operator is calling their network “4G” capable now since consumers don’t really know what that means. In AT&T’s case, it’s a 14.4 Mbps HSPA+ connection. In Verizon’s case, their LTE can go as high as 35 Mbps on a good day. This huge discrepancy may be why they’re so hesitant to offer speed tiers because then Americans could easily compare price and performance, with many likely deciding to go for the fastest network for the cheapest price. There’s also the issue that they’d rather get the same amount of money from everyone, whether it be you and your heavy 20 GB per month consumption habit, or your grandmother, who checks Facebook on her phone every Sunday after church to make sure the family shows up for supper.