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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

#101

Post by lava_pidgeon »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #82

I’m seeing a lot of misplaced cynicism in the comments, much of which fails to deal with the subject matter of the article. The US really does have a capitalism crisis with declining competition — it does not require any form of special intelligence to see that. Switzerland really does have vastly superior infrastructure — it does not take some stroke of brilliance to see that. The essay elegantly articulates the why…

It is an essay not a scientific paper. As such it's more an opinion peace. The first question in my head why it does not compare with Rumania and South Korea.

It might be they had a more free market approach (I don't know really). Poland has a strong wireless connection infrastructure and it has there a market approach e.g.

The reason the essay from Switzerland compares to Germany as both counties are part of the German speaking world and to the US as Americans are very loud on HN , Internet so you need to canter this audience.

That's why I don't like this essay. This very specific sound from "we know it better". This essay doesn't want to find the best way for this type of infrastructure. Ironically I know this sound only from Germany.

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

#102

Post by OscarCunningham »

foobarbecue wrote: post #84

"This article is ... spellchecked with AI" ??? Why on Earth world you use an LLM for that instead of a spell checker???

The AI understands context so it's able to spot typos even when they coincidentally make reel words.

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

#103

Post by initramfs »

danielheath wrote: post #48
vixen99 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Often times the children of such migrants adapt pretty well. I think the term is more euphemistic and neutral than derogatory. It's more like a category that's existed for centuries (but gets more stigma now) because some the older generations who have been in the U.S. for a few decades now look down on those "fresh off the boat," the same way those before them did to them. Irish fled the Potato Famine in the 1850s- they were economic migrants too.

I never really thought of it as a subset of immigrants who move to get rich but not adapt. Lisa Su, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai and Jensen Huang are also economic migrants. Just because they adapted/assimilated more than others doesn't make them _not_ economic migrants.

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

#104

Post by lyu07282 »

up2isomorphism wrote: post #67

Who told you US telco sector is a free market?

I think the people who think "free market" will fix any problem are the same exact people who think that it would be a great idea if companies are allowed to own their own fiber or put thousands of satellites into orbit. They will see it as a problem of regulations that it is too cumbersome to put fiber into the ground as a company, and advocate for deregulation, "micro trenching" and privatization, that in order to "let the market do its thing" you need to deregulate the ISPs, get rid of net neutrality, get rid of the FCC, privatize all publicly owned infrastructure not yet privatized. Its the exact cancer of an ideology that made US and European infrastructure a joke.

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

#105

Post by jltsiren »

quickthrowman wrote: post #69
rurban wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The higher the density, the more problematic to dig up the streets to bury the fibre lines. And US streets are much wider to dig the lines. I've seen city-level street works in the US and they are incredibly slow compared to national highway work, or street work in Europe. Like 10x slower. And getting the permissions? Impossible

You don’t need to dig up streets to install fiber underground. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directional_boring

You often do, if the street has been there for a while. The exact location of underground infrastructure was rarely documented in the past. While the city should have a general idea of what lies under the street, you usually have to dig the street up to determine where you can install new infrastructure safely.

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

#106

Post by rags2riches »

al_borland wrote: post #89

Switzerland is smaller than West Virginia. Less than 1% of the US. It’s much easier, and cheaper, to wire up a small country than the massive one.

Just above your comment is one lamenting the situation in New York City. That's roughly the same population as Switzerland in a not quite as massive area.

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

#107

Post by usrnm »

SXX wrote: post #29
rmunn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are big countries with a good internet. Russia was one before it started turning back into totalitarian shithole.

To be fair the situation with the Internet in deep rural Russia was never great. Not everyone lives in a city.

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

#108

Post by cogman10 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #88
cogman10 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's easier to put in lines in rural and suburban locations than it is to put lines in urban areas This is backwards in my experience, but I probably have a different definition of urban from you. In my area, the suburban area has mostly underground lines that pre-date fiber, and getting fiber is probably not ever happening. Comcast is all we got. But if I drive 15 minutes into the city, there are fiber lines on ev…

It'll depend on the area. From what I've seen, it appears that a lot of cities are eliminating utility poles and are burying all their lines (except for high voltage power).

An urban buried line will be harder than a suburban or rural buried line. Pole access is easier in both situations.

Utilities like buried lines because people will cut and strip overhead lines looking for copper.

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

#109

Post by LeonM »

not_your_vase wrote: post #32
trynumber9 wrote: post #5

I guess they don't bother using Speedtest in Switzerland, as the average speed seems about the same as the US: https://www.speedtest.net/global-index Must be a sampling bias or something.

You know, in Switzerland there is a thing, that if a product or service has the name "Swiss" in its name, then it can be sold for any price regardless of quality - and it will fly off the shelves. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. Swisscom is the biggest ISP in Switzerland - they charge high prices for very slow internet. But they have the word "Swiss" in their name, so it's okay to sell 100 Mbps connection…

> in Switzerland there is a thing, that if a product or service has the name "Swiss" in its name, then it can be sold for any price regardless of quality

That's just basic marketing. You'll see that in most countries, I don't believe that it is unique to Switzerland.

For example: in the US you'll see many products that say "made in America" on the box. Those will likely outsell competing products, even if those are cheaper and better quality still.

And similarly: if you try to sell the "made in America" product in a different country it'll likely by outsold by the "made in [country]" products there.

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

#110

Post by stackghost »

initramfs wrote: post #90
not_your_vase wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, in Switzerland there is a thing, that if a product or service has the name "Swiss" in its name, then it can be sold for any price regardless of quality - and it will fly off the shelves. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. Swisscom is the biggest ISP in Switzerland - they charge high prices for very slow internet. But they have the word "Swiss" in their name, so it's okay to sell 100 Mbps connection…

I've noticed a similar thing when buying products online. Overseas sellers from Asia will package their product as "Designed in Germany" or include a red cross to indicate Swiss design, but may not actually be designed or manufactured in Switzerland. Nice packaging though :)

Plenty of American firms do this too, notably Apple.

Made in China, Designed by Apple in California, lmao

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