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Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

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

#251

Post by pdpi »

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).

The "only" place monopolies tend to emerge in is any market with a significant barrier to entry. Regulatory regime can be one such barrier, but e.g. up-front capital costs and network effects are other barriers to entry that can and will lead to monopolies.

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

#252

Post by suslik »

shell0x wrote: post #213
aetherspawn wrote: post #126

Australia copied the Swiss model and in a very short period of time we went from 2Mbps flaky copper to now you can upgrade most properties to 2Gbps fiber for around $300 one-off fee. I hear 10Gbps is coming soon. The only annoying thing is that ours, despite being terminated the Swiss way, isn’t symmetrical, I think due to congestion on the sea cables?

I highly doubt that. As a German who lived in Asia and now Australia, this is the most incompetent country. They can't get anything right. I live in the city of Sydney and can only get 1 Gbps down and 200 mbps up for 109 AUD a month. I lived in 2017 in Singapore and the internet was already better than that for 1/3 of the price. Australia seems to be pretty backwards in general though.

In Belgium you get 500/100 for 65 euro, which is even worse.

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

#253

Post by ksec »

dlenski wrote: post #223

I don't understand the desire (fetish?) for high speed home Internet connections at home. I have 25 Mbps up. 10 Mbps down. Have had it for years. It's fine. It's fine when both my wife and I are working from home and doing calls. It's fine for software development. It's fine for email and web browsing, and everything other than downloading maddeningly large files, 99% of which shouldn't be that large anyway. It's fin…

>I have 25 Mbps up. 10 Mbps down. Have had it for years. It's fine.

Do you mean the other way around, 25Mbps Down and 10 Mbps up?

It is nice to have, especially when it doesn't cost much. That is why I am perfectly OK with PON rather than dedicated fibre. You only need the 1 or 10Gbps speed for may be a 10 min window per month.

I do think 25Mbps on a house hold bases is quite low. On a 5Mbps Video file I want the first 10 second buffer, 50Mbps done instantly. While I am loading multiple page in the background. Multiply that with a few more user in family. It is perfectly useable a you said, if you dont mind waiting.

Otherwise I think 50 - 100Mbps per person is generally the point we see law of diminishing returns.

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

#254

Post by hahahacorn »

bestouff wrote: post #26
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…

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

#255

Post by limagnolia »

1) Switzerland is tiny compared to the US. 2) FTTH is only available to about 60% of the population right now. It is not clear what percentage of those homes have access to 25 Gbit service.

While I think the model of having the government own the Fiber lines and selling access to providers has a lot of potential, it would be very expensive to build this out to even 60% of the US.

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

#256

Post by LeoPanthera »

dlenski wrote: post #223

I don't understand the desire (fetish?) for high speed home Internet connections at home. I have 25 Mbps up. 10 Mbps down. Have had it for years. It's fine. It's fine when both my wife and I are working from home and doing calls. It's fine for software development. It's fine for email and web browsing, and everything other than downloading maddeningly large files, 99% of which shouldn't be that large anyway. It's fin…

640k ought to be enough for anybody?

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

#257

Post by alex_suzuki »

Swiss here. Just a minor clarification on the article: fibre is not available everywhere in Switzerland. Actually the rollout has been quite slow, and chances are that if you live in a rural or suburban area (like me) or in an older building then you might not have fibre, and are limited to (fairly decent) copper.

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

#258

Post by carefree-bob »

Aurornis wrote: post #234
dlenski wrote: post #223

I don't understand the desire (fetish?) for high speed home Internet connections at home. I have 25 Mbps up. 10 Mbps down. Have had it for years. It's fine. It's fine when both my wife and I are working from home and doing calls. It's fine for software development. It's fine for email and web browsing, and everything other than downloading maddeningly large files, 99% of which shouldn't be that large anyway. It's fin…

Pulling or pushing Docker images, downloading LLM models, installing AAA games from Steam. There are so many use cases that you won't see if you're just doing email and web browsing with a little bit of video streaming. It's also helpful for off-site backup. I believe off-site backup is very important, and having gigabit upload is very helpful for this. > I don't understand the desire (fetish?) If you don't need it t…

I agree that calling it a fetish is weird, but I also have a hard time believing ordinary people are pulling and pushing docker images all the time.

The reality is that the reason these high speed internet political initiatives fail is that for most people internet access is a solved problem, and there isn't the critical mass of people to push through legislation.

Which is not to say that for a minority, it's not a solved problem, but the desires of those in a minority situation don't get prioritized in the democratic process.

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

#259

Post by ragall »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #83

This article is technically incorrect on so many levels I didn’t even bother to finish it. 1. There may be a territorial monopoly on cable. But there is nothing stopping other companies from laying fiber. There are areas - including where I use to live that had cable and the phone company laying fiber 2. Everyone on the internet is using a “shared” connection. The difference is whether it is shared at the last mile o…

> But there is nothing stopping other companies from laying fiber.

Yes there is: the cost.

> Fiber is rarely shared at the last mile.

It is in Switzerland. That's the whole point of this setup.

> Just a little research says 25Gbps is not universal across Switzerland

It is in the big cities. Elsewhere the same arrangement is true, but on a lower scale.

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

#260

Post by carefree-bob »

thelastgallon wrote: post #170

Most states in America ban municipal fiber. They saw EPB (Chattanooga) and said, no, we must make sure that doesn't ever happen again. That is how 'free' market is done in US, all the rules are to make sure the richest people become richer.

woah, I didn't know this. How many states have laws banning municipal fiber?
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