Internet Costs in Cambodia

Goals for This Web Page: 

· To help consumers find the best service for their needs at the best price (Best Value)
· To support communication providers who offer value
· To improve the value of communications available in Cambodia

There are also graphs that show the Most Hours Available for Your Money, if you want to spend only a certain amount each month, and of the Cost of Receiving Data per Gigabit, if you plan to download a lot.

This site does not consider customer service or the ease of connection to the ISP when you dial in. Maximum connection speeds are based on the equipment of ISPs, but estimated connection speeds come from observations.  Your speeds may vary.  You should inform yourself and use the information when selecting a provider.

At the end of the page there are Recommendations for Consumers and ISPs

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How to use the information on this site:

Select the best options from the charts.
Talk to friends who use the ISP and talk to the ISP service staff.
Consider customer service and service access.
Choose an ISP.

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 Summary of Internet Rates

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Cost to Begin Internet Service

This chart shows the cost to begin Internet service with the Four Internet Service Providers (ISPs): TeleSurf, BigPond, Camintel and CamNet. Solid colors show required payments, Blue for registration and red for deposits.  TeleSurf requires a minimum payment towards equipment of $100 with a monthly fee of $20, or a full purchase of the equipment of $600.  Note that Camintel and CamNet have dropped the deposit requirement.

Comment:

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Total Monthly Cost for Internet Service in Cambodia

If you use 0 to 35 hours a month this chart presents the total monthly charges you can expect to pay your Internet Service Provider (ISP).  On the left of the chart is the fixed monthly service charge. The horizontal line shows free hours for each plan. Each line begins to rise when free hours end. The line slopes up according to the hourly rate for additional hours. At any number of monthly hours, you can see the total cost for each plan, although the costs of many plans are now similar.  A vertical line at twenty hours shows the following approximate costs: $55 for BigPond Corporate & $60 for CamNet Option 2.

The lowest line on the left, BigPond Private has the lowest monthly charge, $10. The BigPond plans offer the lowest rates from 0 to 17 hours and from 17 to 35, but for different plans.  You have to be on the right one!  Camnet is due to change their rates in December.    

Don't forget to consider the new Prepaid Internet Cards (PICs).  These can offer much better value than fixed monthly accounts.  See the PIC/Dial-up Value Comparison Here.

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The Most Hours Available for Your Money

From the right side of the chart select the amount that you want to pay each month for e-mail and Internet service. Follow this line to the left until you intersect one of the service plans. Go up to find the number of hours that this plan offers for this payment. Look also at the payment you will make if you use fewer hours than normal on this plan. For example, if you use only 10 hours with Bigpond Corporate, you still have to pay $55.

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Usage Costs for Heavy Users

Here are the rates when you use up to  100 hours.  Camintel and BigPond now have rates that decrease as you use more hours.  There is little difference between the prices of BigPond Corporate plan and of the Camintel and CamNet option Three in this usage range.

Comment:

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Usage at Very High Rates

For internet cafés and business users this chart gives monthly costs for usage of 100 hours per month ( 3.4 hours/day) to 550 hours a month (18 hours/day).  Note that in this range the BigPond Corporate plan becomes cost effective.  The CamNet option 4 becomes about 25% more expensive than either BigPond or CamNet.  This is due to the declining rates of Camintel and BigPond at high usage rates while the CamNet rates are fixed.  CamNet needs to adopt the same declining  rate structure.

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Rate at Which You Can Receive Data

If fast download of graphics and files is important, you need to look at the speed of the servers that the ISP provides. Currently BigPond and CamNet offer 56Kbs servers, Camintel and Everyday 33.6Kbs. When downloading from the internet the speed to the ISPs international link is as  important as the modem connection speed. The speed of the entire connection, international link to ISP and modem to ISP, are measured by  the time that it takes to download a file of known size.  The rates charted are based on tests at a Bandwidth speed test site.

Note that measured data transfer rates are substantially lower than potential rates.  Only one test of TeleSurf has been done.  The measured rate was 56Kbps.  

Remember that both your own modem and the ISP’s modem limit your download speed. A 33.6Kbs modem receiving from BigPond and a 56Kbs modem receiving from CamNet will each download at 33.6Kbs or less.  For interesting information on modems and how modem speed is calculated see:  How Modems Work and  How Bits and Bytes Work

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Measured Download Rates

These are the connection rates returned in a series of tests for each ISP.  All tests were performed on a 56K modem with a 21xxxx telephone line.  Tests were made a various times of the day, trying to reflect speeds that you can expect.

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Receiving Data the Value Received per $

Don't forget to consider the new Prepaid Internet Cards (PICs).  These can offer much better value than fixed monthly accounts. In the PIC section I compare the data you receive per dollar as you use more and more hours of the Dial-up and Prepaid Internet Card Services.  See the PIC/Dial-up Value Comparison Here.

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How Much Does TeleSurf Cost?  

Wireless Internet from TeleSurf or CamNet is full of costs.  There are six costs associated with each Service: a one- time Installation fee, a one-time Equipment fee, a Monthly Equipment Rental fee, a Monthly Service fee, a charge for a block of data, and a charge for data in excess of that block.  This chart looks at the installation an monthly costs.  64 Kbps service refers to that speed at which you can receive data.   It is the choice most comparable to a 56Kbps dial-up modem and the choice most private woreless users will make.  The 128 Kbps option offers twice the data speed, 256 Kbps four times, and so on.

Installation and monthly service charges are based on the size of your connection.   Installation of 64 Kbps service costs $40, while the cost of monthly service costs $30.  In addition TeleSurf users must pay an initial $100 payment for the equipment (equivalent to a modem) and a monthly rental fee of $20 per month.  Note that users can purchase the equipment outright for $600.  Therefore, minimum installation cost is $140 and the firsts month's service will cost a minimum of $50, before you pay for any data.  

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How Much Does TeleSurf Cost? 

The fifth cost with TeleSurf is the data cost.  Once you have paid the first four costs mentioned above you need to pay for any data that you receive.  Data can be in allocations of 100, 300 and 750 Megabytes or 1 GigaByte (1024 Megabytes).  The area outlined in dark indicates the data/cost ratio  when the cost of monthly service and equipment charges are included.  Data beyond your agreed allotment block is billed additionally and shown in light colors at the bottom.  For comparison, the average data value for BigPond, Camintel, CamNet, and Everyday plans is shown outlined in Red at the bottom.

So, when using 100 MB of data or less, TeleSurf is more expensive per unit of data than current dial-up provided data.  TeleSurf does though provide faster downloading (64 Kbps vs. 10-25 Kbps observed for dial-up services).  When 300 MB of data is used per month then TeleSurf becomes less expensive as well as providing faster downloading.  

Note: These calculations assume that when using a dial-up service you download at the observed rate for the entire time that you are connected.  This is not a valid assumption if you use a dial-up service and spend time online chatting, reading or in other activities where you are downloading at less than the observed rate.  

How much data is 100MB or 300 MB?  

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Consumer Recommendations

Camintel and BigPond offer plans with rates that decrease as you use more hours.  

Consumers should let all providers know if they are not satisfied with the service they provide.  

Thanks to the ISPs:

BigPond  for reducing the penalties for fluctuations in usage and dropping rates for users

BigPond for adding a server in Siem Reap; finally, a decent connected to the outside world
Access to the Siem Reap server is at 964 700.    

CamNet for fast, accessible, stable, low cost Internet connections

Camintel for inexpensive access from the provinces

Provider Recommendations

BigPond:

Camintel:

Camintel need to add a few free hours to the monthly plan in order to offer the lowest rates. 

CamNet:

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