What Is 1GB Of Data? What Can You Do With It At A Time? What Are Country-wise Data Charges?

What Is 1GB Of Data?

Nowadays, mobile phone plans vary as per gigabytes(GB) of data that come with them. We need to understand the bytes table for this.

Data Sizes	Kilobytes	Megabytes	Gigabytes	Terabytes
How many in a Byte?	0.001 KB	0.000001 MB	0.000000001 GB	0.000000000001 TB
How many in an KB?	1 KB	0.001 MB	0.000001 GB	0.000000001 TB
How many in an MB?	1000 KB	1 MB	0.001 GB	0.000001 TB
How many in a GB?	1000000 KB	1000 MB	1 GB	0.001 TB
How many in a TB?	1000000000 KB	1000000 MB	1000 GB	1 TB

Here is how the Data goes like:

Kilo < Mega < Giga < Tera < Peta , Exa , Zetta , Yotta

1GB=1024MB 1MB=1024KB 1KB=1024B 1B=8bits(8 Bits are made by a combination of 1 and 0) 4bits=1nibble

A gigabyte (GB) is a unit of digital information equal to 1,024 megabytes (MB), so a GB is much bigger than an MB. 1 Gigabyte (GB) is perhaps the standard measure for data plans all across network providers. So if you need unlimited talk, texts, almost all of the carriers charge you the same. The difference, however, is what data plan comes along.

What Can You Do With It At A Time? 

Activity	1 GB =
Web pages	view 600 web pages
Email/Instant Messaging	send 350,000 messages
Streaming video (HD)	30 minutes of video
Streaming video (SD)	2 hours of video
Streaming music	listen to 200 songs
Skype voice call	30 hours of call
Skype video call	4 hours of call
App downloads or update	25 apps

What Are Country-wise Data Charges?

Top 5 countries with cheapest Mobile Data

1	India
2	Israel
3	Kyrgyzstan
4	Italy
5	Ukraine

India ranks the cheapest at $0.09 per GB, a 65% decrease in price compared to the country’s average cost in 2019.

Why is data so cheap in India? A significant factor is the country’s intense market competition, driven by Reliance Jio—a telecom company owned by Reliance Industries, one of the largest conglomerates in India. Reliance Jio launched in 2016, offering customers free trial periods and plans for less than a $1 a month. This forced other providers to drop their pricing, driving down the overall cost of data in the region.

Top 5 countries with most expensive Mobile Data

155	Malawi	INR  2023.7
154	Benin	2009.7
153	Chad	1722.5
152	Yemen	1179.8
151	Botswana	1024.05

A striking trend worth noting is that four out of five of the most expensive countries for mobile data are in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

A significant factor behind the high cost of data in SSA is its lack of infrastructure. With overburdened networks, the data bundles offered in the region are generally smaller. This drives up the average cost per GB when compared to countries with unlimited packages. Recently, in India 5G network tests have also began by various internet service providers like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and VI. This will provide a higher bandwidth than 4G. Many of the services have already started in foreign countries. 

Written by:

Nidhi Patel

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