Thanks to the addition of multiple undersea cables, there’s more bandwidth capacity around the world, but prices are still relatively expensive along certain routes such as those in India and Africa. Telegeography updated its global wholesale bandwidth pricing data Wednesday, and discovered that prices for bandwidth capacity along certain routes dropped thanks to new submarine cables, but not as much as one might expect.

For example, despite three new cables connecting India, built in the last three years, leasing capacity to deliver Internet goodies like Google still cost $175,000 per month per 10 Gbps wavelengths between London and Mumbai. That’s 22 percent lower than before but far higher than the roughly $100,000 per 10 Gbps wavelength cost of sending bits from Miami to Santiago.

These charges help determine the overall cost associated with sending web and data center traffic around the world. The key is that they are falling, which is good for data center operators, massive web companies, ISPs and mobile operators who have to pay for capacity to ensure their bits get to the end consumer. The problem is there are still massive disparities caused by a lack of competition. (for example, Australia’s bandwidth costs are higher because of a lack of competing cables terminating on the continent), corruption and regulatory issues.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The future of Wi-Fi in the enterprise
• From car to cloud: the future of the in-vehicle app landscape
• A near-term outlook for big data