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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

#351

Post by dlcarrier »

guiambros wrote: post #173
Aurornis wrote: post #161

This article came up before. It's heavy on the clickbait, if you couldn't guess from the title. Some important points that they leave out: - 25G internet isn't available everywhere in Switzerland. It's just the fastest tier available in some locations. - The United States is 85 times larger than Switzerland. The entire country of Switzerland is the size of a small US state. Covering the US with broadband is much hard…

I live in NYC, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and yet Verizon Fios 1 Gbps is my only option. I tried to upgrade to Fios 2 Gbps, but it's not available. Spectrum only goes to 200Mbps; no other providers in my area. I have no idea if Switzerland is any better, but the US situation in 2026 is appalling. If we're this bad in NYC, imagine what someone in rural America goes through.

Everyone's mocking you for using more than 1 Gbps of internet bandwidth, but I honestly want to know how you are able to saturate it. I've found on even the fastest internet connections, it's difficult to get more than a few hundred Mbps, from any given sever. Do you have a bunch of people on the network downloading large files simultaneously, or are you connected to servers able to saturate your connection? I have trouble getting my computers to copy data between each other anywhere near the theoretical limit for a 1 Gbps NIC, despite being connected through only a single switch.

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

#352

Post by mstaoru »

numlock86 wrote: post #186
ironbound wrote: post #152

Some in Poland have 2.5Gbit+ fiber, while other friends in Berlin have ADSL. Sweden has good fiber to, off the top of my head.

> Some in have X, while other friends in have Y Cool. What's your message here, though? I got 10GBit/s down and 1Gbit/s up fiber in a medium size city in Germany as a non-enterprise customer. I even went to buy a capable router and SFP+ network cards for our main PCs and NAS to be able to enjoy it fully. A friend in Poland (close to the border near Cottbus) doesn't have an internet line at all and always relied on mo…

AFAIK _most_ of German personal customers are still only covered by DSL.

- Happy Vodafone customer having 40 Mbps on a good day.

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

#353

Post by jjav »

Aurornis wrote: post #161

This article came up before. It's heavy on the clickbait, if you couldn't guess from the title. Some important points that they leave out: - 25G internet isn't available everywhere in Switzerland. It's just the fastest tier available in some locations. - The United States is 85 times larger than Switzerland. The entire country of Switzerland is the size of a small US state. Covering the US with broadband is much hard…

Other than running a commercial CDN at home or something.. what possible need is there for a 25 Gbit home connection?

My home ISP connection (in Silicon Valley) is ~22 Mbit. That is enough for just about everything I can think of. We can run 3 zoom calls simultaneously (3 people in the house), stream movies, play online games, etc, all works fine.

The only time I wish for a bit more is for huge downloads, but that is so rare (once a month? probably not even) that it's just a footnote.

And at my personal office I have ~150Mbit connection and that is overkill for everything I can think of.

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

#354

Post by boxed »

dlcarrier wrote: post #350
Turskarama wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - The United States is 85 times larger than Switzerland. The entire country of Switzerland is the size of a small US state. Covering the US with broadband is much harder than Switzerland. I see this argument come up a lot with regards to all kinds of infrastructure, and the thing is it simply _isn't true_. What matters is population density, GDP per capita, geography, and will. A countries size doesn't matter since…

If the least populated 3% of Switzerland's geographic area didn't have internet access at all, no one would care because it's just a single frozen mountain. If the least populated 3% of the USA's geographic area didn't have internet access at all, people would care because it's the entire state of Wyoming. Okay, most people wouldn't care, but some people in Wyoming would.

That seems like another way to lie with silly stats though. If 3% of the least populated areas of all the subdivisions of the US the size of Switzerland were not connected, then that would indeed be just as irrelevant.

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

#355

Post by pshirshov »

Irish model is similar (shared ducts, backbone networks which are mandated to provide connectivity to ISPs, including competitors). But Irish market is shit. All is done over pppoe, hard to get fair dual-stack, assymetric shaping (5gbit down, 50mbit up), hidden 10tb/month limits, etc.

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

#356

Post by jjav »

guiambros wrote: post #173
Aurornis wrote: post #161

This article came up before. It's heavy on the clickbait, if you couldn't guess from the title. Some important points that they leave out: - 25G internet isn't available everywhere in Switzerland. It's just the fastest tier available in some locations. - The United States is 85 times larger than Switzerland. The entire country of Switzerland is the size of a small US state. Covering the US with broadband is much hard…

I live in NYC, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and yet Verizon Fios 1 Gbps is my only option. I tried to upgrade to Fios 2 Gbps, but it's not available. Spectrum only goes to 200Mbps; no other providers in my area. I have no idea if Switzerland is any better, but the US situation in 2026 is appalling. If we're this bad in NYC, imagine what someone in rural America goes through.

> but the US situation in 2026 is appalling

appalling?

What exactly, in detail, can't you do with a 1 Gpbps connection?!

My home ISP delivers ~22 Mbps and it is totally fine for all use cases.

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

#357

Post by lwkl »

laughing_man wrote: post #318
apexalpha wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the US situation in 2026 is appalling. 1Gpbs symmetric is not 'appaling' come on now.

I guess I'm getting old, but I have to wonder what people are doing that they need more than a gigabit. I don't think I've ever been able to use more than about 50 mbit due to constraints on the other end.

You don’t really need it but it is nice when downloads are really fast. Though most services cap downloads at 2 - 3 Gbit/s.

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

#358

Post by panick21_ »

johnsmith1840 wrote: post #190
atoav wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now let's do trains.

US has the largest railway on earth by a large margin

This is kind of a dumb statement. Yes the US is one of the larges most populated countries and has been for a long time. Its just coping instead of actually engaging with the question about what makes railways good. The US put down lots of track in the 18-19th centuries as its industrial revolution was pre-car and its the biggest country where this happened.

If you look into detail and not just very simple 'we transport this much cargo' you see the US system has many disadvantages and is not nearly as amazing as some US people barging make it seem.

Frankly given the historical strength of railways in the US into the 20th century, the near perfect geography for rail and the lack of ports its quite embracing how little things are done with rail.

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

#359

Post by jjav »

laughing_man wrote: post #318
apexalpha wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the US situation in 2026 is appalling. 1Gpbs symmetric is not 'appaling' come on now.

I guess I'm getting old, but I have to wonder what people are doing that they need more than a gigabit. I don't think I've ever been able to use more than about 50 mbit due to constraints on the other end.

> I guess I'm getting old, but I have to wonder what people are doing that they need more than a gigabit.

I have a hard time believing there is anything they can do to saturate 1 Gbps connection at home. It's probably just bragging rights on speed test reports, without any relevance to real usage.

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

#360

Post by Beretta_Vexee »

jimnotgym wrote: post #212
gleenn wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard someone argue that because original phones rolled out in the US much earlier and more broadly, we spend all this money on copper wiring. Because Europe didn't have as much, they transitioned to fast cellular quickly. Being first does not mean you will be best certainly.

Europe? I heard that about Asia and Africa, maybe post soviet Eastern Europe, but not Europe in general. We had telephones...

Major campaigns to install telephone lines took place in the run-up to and during the First World War. This enabled civilians and conscripts who were not trained in the use of radio to communicate with headquarters.

There were literally regiments drawing up lines as the troops advanced.

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