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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

#51

Post by cogman10 »

danpalmer wrote: post #10
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's fair to critique this article not covering this, but I also think this is largely a red herring. The vast majority of the issue in the US is suburban, where density isn't really a problem. The US has a lot of rural areas, but they represent a tiny fraction of the population. As a comparison, Australia has roughly the same land-mass as the contiguous states, but with less than a tenth of the population. It has it…

Rural and suburban line burial isn't a hard problem to solve. It's easier to put in lines in rural and suburban locations than it is to put lines in urban areas.

You don't have to, for example, shut down a road when putting in rural lines.

It's a mistake to think that population density has anything to do with the difficulty of getting high speed internet. It's nearly completely unrelated.

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

#52

Post by initramfs »

gregsadetsky wrote: post #25

Getting a Spectrum cable modem internet connection in NYC in 2026 is so deeply humiliating. Dealing with the ridiculously limited upload speed, the outages, the locked router. The 40 minutes it takes on the phone to get it disconnected. Their constant attempts at upselling you cell phone plans and other terrible tech you’d never consider. Truly, Fios is the most bare minimum. And there are much better options if you…

I'm guessing you saw this SNL sketch? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5DeDLI8_IM

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

#53

Post by vlovich123 »

gregsadetsky wrote: post #25

Getting a Spectrum cable modem internet connection in NYC in 2026 is so deeply humiliating. Dealing with the ridiculously limited upload speed, the outages, the locked router. The 40 minutes it takes on the phone to get it disconnected. Their constant attempts at upselling you cell phone plans and other terrible tech you’d never consider. Truly, Fios is the most bare minimum. And there are much better options if you…

No one is forcing you to use their modem or router.

Out on the west coast I’ve generally been fine with spectrum modulo the upload speed although they’ve did a recent upgrade to 100mbit/s+ due to new DOCSIS standards. I finally got Fiber in SF so I switched but Spectrum was finally kind of good enough for the most part.

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

#54

Post by bhhaskin »

oceanplexian wrote: post #49

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 Switz…

That's great for Utah, but most other places in the US don't have a system like that and are stuck with one maybe two ISPs.

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

#55

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

oceanplexian wrote: post #49

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 Switz…

> in Utah

What percentage of the US population does that cover?

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

#56

Post by lxgr »

gregsadetsky wrote: post #25

Getting a Spectrum cable modem internet connection in NYC in 2026 is so deeply humiliating. Dealing with the ridiculously limited upload speed, the outages, the locked router. The 40 minutes it takes on the phone to get it disconnected. Their constant attempts at upselling you cell phone plans and other terrible tech you’d never consider. Truly, Fios is the most bare minimum. And there are much better options if you…

If you call FIOS the "bare minimum", what is an acceptable connection to you? In my experience, it's one of the best ISPs I've ever had.

Installation alone was phenomenal. This is probably largely downstream of NYC allowing a sprawl of overhead wiring in many neighborhoods, but I was deeply impressed by an installation team building out an entirely new fiber line to our apartment within less than 48 hours of putting in the order, for free, climbing through backyards and drilling exterior walls and everything.

They did physically cut the existing Spectrum cable to the apartment for absolutely no reason, so maybe playing fair competitively isn't quite there yet, but all in all, the dynamic between the two providers seems to create very good outcomes for end users there.

Of course, if your landlord does not allow any of that (common if you live in a larger building in NYC) and you're stuck with a monopoly, your experience can be miserable, so this probably really only works as a strategy if you enforce access and accept overbuild as an outcome.

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

#57

Post by danpalmer »

db48x wrote: post #38

False! Ziply Fiber offers speeds up to 50Gbps. https://ziplyfiber.com/internet/multigig

I can also get 400Gbit in my office, that doesn't mean it's a useful benchmark for the country. The article seems to represent the state of the 3 countries compared pretty well.

Where exactly is Ziply available? Their website is vague, but it seems to be at most a small corner of the North West, and it seems like their 50G plan is not as widely available as their 2G plan.

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

#59

Post by [deleted] »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #55
oceanplexian wrote: post #49

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 Switz…

> in Utah What percentage of the US population does that cover?

[deleted]

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

#60

Post by Nursie »

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…

> In parts of America, you can drive for 24 hours in the same direction without even crossing into a different state

Which US states can you do this in? You can drive across Texas from El Paso to Port Arthur in 12 AFAICT. Alaska maybe?

Now Western Australia where I live ... 36 hours from Cape Leeuwin to Kununurra, and we only have 10% the population of Texas.

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