Ask HN: Where are cheap regions to live with fast internet?

15 points by PopeDotNinja ↗ HN

15 comments

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Is this limited to regions within the United States? If not, I think Romania would rank quite high in Europe by cost of internet/housing.
Romania is not too bad. You can get Ethernet to the home for very cheap. The only problem is that it's using CGNAT and the majority of the IPs seem blacklisted for fraud or online game cheating so I recommend having some place you can VPN into.
I live in Romania and the main ISP (by market share) doesn't use CGNAT for the residential plans (FTTH). And I also never had any problems with any IP blacklists.

That being said, I wouldn't necessarily recommend Romania to the OP as a place to relocate to. Internet is just too small a factor, and today there's good internet just about everywhere.

I think you underestimate how good the internet here in Romania is. There are not many places in this world where you can get unlimited internet at 500Mbits for a few euros a month.
I'm sure Czech Republic, Hungary or Croatia outside of the capital city centres would be cheap and beautiful countryside nearby.
Romania, Vietnam, are your best bets
Bulgaria sort of fits this - low cost of living, flat 10% income tax, fast internet, reasonable number of tech companies and startups.
I'm not sure if you're in the US, but I've heard good things about Chatanooga.
Come to Malaysia. Don't stay in Kuala Lumpur or Cyberjaya, especially if you're working remote. An hour's drive out of town and you can get a two story house for $400/month. There's enough comforts too - cinemas, malls, KFC, pizza, Starbucks, swimming pools, barbeques, educated people who speak English, plenty of parks and gardens, and low pollution.

Tax is capped at about 25%, including for businesses. We also give entrepreneurs startup visas even for just an idea, where verified startups could get 0% tax under the previous system (which is being revised because people were abusing it to set up call centers). There's also a generous program if you want to bring in foreign engineers.

In or near small/medium Appalachian towns are a choice. Some examples of larger ones to look around are Indiana, PA, Prestonburg, KY, and Charlotte, NC (I know, it's a city but still a cheap area).
Medellin, Colombia. Keep the same U.S. time zone. Affordable living, can get fiber direct to your apartment/house.
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South East Asia. Generally peaceful, good and cheap internet and cost of living is relatively low for Westerners.