Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

#151

Post by martinald » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 1:01 AM UTC

harrall wrote: post #74

This article gets ahead of itself. The issue isn’t the splitting. There is no fiber to even split in most places. A lot of places in America had their “network” infra built 50-100 years ago on copper and no one wants to pay to basically rebuild all of it. I happen to live in an area where there are still above ground utilities. We got >5 gig fiber fast. We have 700Mbps 5G. I literally watched them string the fiber on…

I'ts almost certainly shared. 99% of FTTH is (X)G(S)-PON which shares the fibre over a few properties. Usually something like 32 max.

The Swiss use point to point fibre (there are a few small pockets of this elsewhere). But in reality it is very hard to saturate. XGSPON has 10G/10G shared between the node. GPON has 2.4gbit down/1.2gbit up shared across the node.

In reality point to point is not really a benefit in 99.99% of scenarios, residential internet use cannot saturate 10G/10G for long, even with many 'heavy' internet users (most users can't really get more than >1gig internally over WiFi to start with).

And if it is a problem there is now 50G-PON which can run side by side, so you just add more bandwidth that way.

Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

#152

Post by bigbadfeline » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 1:03 AM UTC

peyton wrote: post #144

bigbadfeline wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What exactly did they prove? They proved that the Free Market doesn't automatically provide functional competition, if you think about it, the Western-style free market is very keen on creating and maintaining monopolies, even cheating isn't going to help you here. > The company laid down fibre because of what they saw as a potential competitor (municipal fibre). The OP is about free market failures, not about comp…

The OP is about telecom. I took a look and learned [1]: > The telecommunications industry in China is dominated by three state-run businesses: China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile. A little slippery to bring China into the telecom free market discussion and contrast it with “Western-style” while failing to mention the structure of its telecom industry. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_ind…

> The OP is about telecom. I took a look and learned [1]:

Untrue - in the context of the OP, telecom is just an example. Look at the title.

> The telecommunications industry in China is dominated by three state-run businesses: China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile.

"More competition" doesn't mean "no monopolization". Communications are political everywhere, I'd be surprised if they were a subject of less control in China than in the US. However, even on Amazon and even with tariffs, there's more competition between Chinese sellers than between sellers of other origins.

Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

#153

Post by zx8080 » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 1:05 AM UTC

ttul wrote: post #9

In my small island community, I participated in a municipal committee whose mandate was to bring proper broadband to the island. Although two telecom duopolies already served the community, one of them had undersea fiber but zero fiber to the home (DSL remains the only option), whereas the other used a 670 Mbps wireless microwave link for backhaul and delivery via coaxial cable. And pricing? Insanely expensive for ei…

Either side of the spectre lies enshittification:

- more competition comes with margin squeezing and cheapest source for service or goods

- less competition brings the monopoly, the dream of any capitalist (owner, not user).

Either way comes enshittification, and there's no middle balance, it drifts towards one of the sides always.

Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

#154

Post by kube-system » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 1:06 AM UTC

awakeasleep wrote: post #137

hibikir wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difficulties of American internet speeds have little to do with the total size of the country, but how far individual families are from each other. Spain is roughly the size of Texas, and Spain has a higher population, but you need a lot less fiber to each home, because metro areas are so much denser, and therefore it's so much easier to lay the fiber. As usual, blame the suburbs, which make all kinds of infrastr…

Huge swaths of our densest metro areas, in our largest cities, do not have any fiber option, just one cable provider.

The NEC, which is the only area of the US that really has any density to speak of, does have pretty good fiber penetration.

https://www.reviews.org/app/uploads/2024/11/Verizon-Fios-cov...

Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

#155

Post by strictnein » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 1:07 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #73

mft_ wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So one would think. And yet, living in Switzerland after the UK involved one after another discovery of how well-ordered and -run a country could be. And then moving to Germany was like stepping back even further behind my memories of the UK. I'm sure you could find examples of countries that do specific things as well as Switzerland; but I'm not aware of many places that do almost everything so excellently. (Maybe J…

I don't doubt there are differences. I doubt they're insurmountable. Again, because the Swiss aren't some genetically superior subspecies. Culture can be changed. I see Americans talk about how impossible universal healthcare is as if the rest of the developed world hasn't largely figured it out.

Been an American my entire life. 45+ years. I've never heard a single person say that universal healthcare is "impossible".

Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

#156

Post by November_Echo » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 1:08 AM UTC

0xy wrote: post #39

twelvedogs wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is still pretty messy, Telstra was privatised and pretty much stopped upgrading their network for years around the 24 mb ADSL level Eventually we had a forward thinking prime Minister create a new company that started running fibre to homes and wholesaling it to non government businesses but they lost power and fibre to the home became fibre to the neighbourhood running the last bit over existing phone line…

They stopped upgrading their network because government was publicly implying they'd do something nationally on broadband. Before then, they were rolling out fast internet. Telstra's cable network (aka. BigPond Ultimate at the time) could do 100Mbps fifteen years ago! Today, the Australian government continues to stomp on the neck of the free market. Numerous initiatives for faster and better privately operated fiber…

> TPG wanted to roll out faster AND cheaper fiber in the inner city. Government said no thanks, we'll keep NBN with abysmal upload speeds to protect our investment.

Allowing other networks to take away the easiest, highest margin customers would break the NBN. It would likely lead us back to an unfit for purpose, "Free Market" situation, that further disadvantages rural, regional, and remote communities.

Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

#157

Post by bigbadfeline » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 1:09 AM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #138

bigbadfeline wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What exactly did they prove? They proved that the Free Market doesn't automatically provide functional competition, if you think about it, the Western-style free market is very keen on creating and maintaining monopolies, even cheating isn't going to help you here. > The company laid down fibre because of what they saw as a potential competitor (municipal fibre). The OP is about free market failures, not about comp…

Western free market doesn’t create monopolies. Where did you get that idea? The only place monopolies tend to emerge is heavily regulated areas that allow for regulatory capture (laying fiber is a great example of this).

> Western free market doesn’t create monopolies.

To quote myself: "the Western-style free market is very keen on creating and maintaining monopolies"

Guess who's the highly influential investor, with strong connection to the WH who said the following:

"Competition is for losers".

This sums up pretty well what the free market is keen on.

Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

#158

Post by strictnein » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 1:10 AM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #149

longislandguido wrote: post #143

Because Switzerland is the size of Maryland. Imagine pouring all federal resources into one cramped state. I thought spamming your own blog was not allowed here.

Switzerland and the US have almost identical government expenditure per capita. Maryland still doesn't have 25 Gbps home internet.

That's kind of their point. A lot of those government expenditures go to things that citizens of Maryland may not want or benefit from.

Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

#159

Post by strictnein » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 1:12 AM UTC

comrade1234 wrote: post #48

I'm in Zurich and I have 1Gb. My provider is offering higher for no additional cost - I'd have to put in a new modem/fiber-to-Ethernet adapter. However my home network is cat-5e and my switch is also 1Gb so I don't bother - it's pointless.

Unless your house is gigantic, cat-5e can handle 2.5Gbps just fine.

Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

#160

Post by Vinnl » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 1:12 AM UTC

lll-o-lll wrote: post #150

whereistejas wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is insurmountable; however each one of us must play within the practical constraints of our local geographies (political, social, financial and physical). The parent comment probably means that Switzerland is in a positive on all axes unlike the rest of the world.

It’s politics. Boil most things down and the technical is inconsequential when compared to the politics. Look at the political system of Switzerland and you will see a radically different setup. And I think that’s the horse. The rest is cart. Yes they are rich but why? Yes they are relatively stable socially but why? Decentralised Canton government structure + direct democracy (referendums all the time for things tha…

Heh, you were walking right up to my viewpoint and then turned away. A parliamentary democracy with proportional representation has way more influence IMO, and you'll find another couple of relatively well-run countries that work like that.