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Why Switzerland has 25 gbit internet and America doesn't

stefan.schueller.net

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

#41

Post by lefra »

rmunn wrote: post #18
kyralis wrote: post #4

The article does not include the word "density" at all. Switzerland has 2.5x the population density that the US does. I absolutely believe that US regulation choices encourage telecom monopolies and suppresses service in the US, but it's impossible to make a credible argument for that without acknowledging the density challenges that the majority of the US (geographically) faces.

It appears the author lives in Germany. In my experience, Europeans who haven't visited the US (I don't know if he has or not) often have a hard time grasping just how HUGE the country is. It literally spans an entire continent east to west. In Europe, you can usually drive to another country's border, or the coast, within 4-6 hours (sometimes more depending on where you are). In parts of America, you can drive for 2…

European here. Maybe I'm not typical, but I know that the contiguous US is about as large as the EU (around 4000 km from one side to the other). And if you need 24h to get to the other side if a state, you're either on dirt tracks in Alaska, or got stuck somewhere in the worst traffic jam ever. Texas is about 1000km wide, just like the larger european countries, that's a 10 to 12 hour drive.

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

#42

Post by ChuckMcM »

doublepg23 wrote: post #34
lxgr wrote: post #27

What exactly is the point of the LLM-generated infographics in this article? I don't have a problem with LLM-generated content in principle, but the bare minimum an author has to do is to check them for trivial errors such as duplicated labels, inconsistent diagrams etc., and just the first one falls short at that. Maybe more importantly, I don't understand what it's supposed to tell me: It mentions that "duplication…

The point is "America Bad. Upvotes to the left."

Yeah, that was kind of my take on it.

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

#43

Post by thewanderer1983 »

kyralis wrote: post #4

The article does not include the word "density" at all. Switzerland has 2.5x the population density that the US does. I absolutely believe that US regulation choices encourage telecom monopolies and suppresses service in the US, but it's impossible to make a credible argument for that without acknowledging the density challenges that the majority of the US (geographically) faces.

Yes the complete lack of geography in the article should of raised red flags for people.

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

#45

Post by GolfPopper »

rmunn wrote: post #18
kyralis wrote: post #4

The article does not include the word "density" at all. Switzerland has 2.5x the population density that the US does. I absolutely believe that US regulation choices encourage telecom monopolies and suppresses service in the US, but it's impossible to make a credible argument for that without acknowledging the density challenges that the majority of the US (geographically) faces.

It appears the author lives in Germany. In my experience, Europeans who haven't visited the US (I don't know if he has or not) often have a hard time grasping just how HUGE the country is. It literally spans an entire continent east to west. In Europe, you can usually drive to another country's border, or the coast, within 4-6 hours (sometimes more depending on where you are). In parts of America, you can drive for 2…

The immense geography doesn't matter as much as you might think, because very few people one lives there. The Mountain West and Great Plains are largely empty and most of the people who do live in them live in a small number of urban and suburban areas. I think geography is an overused excuse for America's poor delivery of residential internet.

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

#46

Post by Stevvo »

initramfs wrote: post #8

The fact that some in Switzerland wanted to cap population at 10 million says a lot about their free market. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/14/switzerland-re... Fortunately, the referendum failed. I mean, sure it's nice to have a small population, but I think it's also important to try to improve economic migration everywhere. I actually live in a rural area in the U.S, and was surprised to see that I now…

Switzerland is a democracy, another concept foreign to Americans. People vote on all sorts of things all the time.

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

#47

Post by cogman10 »

kyralis wrote: post #4

The article does not include the word "density" at all. Switzerland has 2.5x the population density that the US does. I absolutely believe that US regulation choices encourage telecom monopolies and suppresses service in the US, but it's impossible to make a credible argument for that without acknowledging the density challenges that the majority of the US (geographically) faces.

Density doesn't really make the sort of difference you might think.

Every home in america has electricity and plumbing even though those utilities have the same density problem. Up until the rise of cell phones, every home had a telephone line as well.

In many ways, the lack of density actually makes it easier for you to install new lines. It's a lot easier and faster to plow through a long strip of grass next to a highway than it is to deal with a built up ubran location (I've actually done this work).

US regulations actually give telecoms a leg up in a lot of ways to expand services. These private companies have utility access to power polls and easement access to common lines. About the only regulation that can get in the way is some cities and states have minimum service requirements before you can start burying in a new territory. That is a give away to the ISPs to tamp down competition.

The reason internet is so crap is because utility lines are all private. For example, in the UK BT owns all the lines and British law allows for line rental from 3rd party ISPs. That's what allows you to get a wide variety of ISPs without having to plow in a brand new line to your location. That shared infrastructure monopolized by a central government authority is exactly what the US would need to have fast internet everywhere. Without that, ISPs have no incentive to increase speeds as new competition is very hard to create or come by.

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

#48

Post by danielheath »

vixen99 wrote: post #39
initramfs wrote: post #8

The fact that some in Switzerland wanted to cap population at 10 million says a lot about their free market. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/14/switzerland-re... Fortunately, the referendum failed. I mean, sure it's nice to have a small population, but I think it's also important to try to improve economic migration everywhere. I actually live in a rural area in the U.S, and was surprised to see that I now…

I'm not sure what economic migration is. Economic for whom? I'm not taking a side by asking, merely wondering.

"Economic migration" is a (usually derogatory) term for moving into a country to earn more money, with no desire to adapt to the culture of your new home.

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

#49

Post by oceanplexian »

We had this in Utah for over a decade now (Approx. 24% of the State) via Utopia, congrats to Switzerland on finally catching up. I believe 10G is around $200/month and you can select from a dozen or so ISPs on the other end.

If you were really gung-ho about proving something to this annoying blogger I'm sure you could convince one of the mom and pop ISPs on the network to throw a 100G optic on both ends. Unlike Switzerland Utah lets you buy the physical strand of fiber outright for around $3k (Hopefully that's not too capitalist for you).

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

#50

Post by fc417fc802 »

esseph wrote: post #2

Ziply fiber has 50Gbps service Their service area is >15x the size of Switzerland. (16k sq miles vs 250k square miles) The overbuilding is a very annoying problem though, I agree.

TBF Ziply is very much an outlier. Most urban and suburban places in the US have middling to poor connectivity provided by a monopoly or duopoly that overcharges while engaging in various underhanded tactics.

Weirdly enough some of the most reasonable offerings in the US can be had in the few rural counties that have built out municipal fiber networks alongside the electric grid. Unfortunately that is once again very much the exception rather than the norm.

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