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France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

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Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#21

Post by dietr1ch »

MrGando wrote: post #3

And here in SF we have like 55%? Been waiting for it for 10 years in my hood.

It's ironic that SF has such a bad network.

When I moved there like 10yrs ago I thought I would finally have 1gig fiber, but bandwidth was on par with what I had with my parent's VDSL connection from the country side, and latencies were worse, I went from sub-5ms to 30ms because many servers were actually in LA and the routes were bad (I expected ~1ms per 100km, not ~5ms/100km).

ISP gerrymandering to avoid competition was unexpected coming from the land of free markets

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#22

Post by RiverCrochet »

testing22321 wrote: post #7
chalupa-supreme wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In metro Atlanta, just outside of city limits, I was desperate for fiber for a long time. Forced to watch other neighboring cities get Google Fiber at great monthly rates. I pay a bit more with AT&T now, but it’s so worth every penny between streaming, gaming, and personal projects.

Do you really notice it with streaming? I have 80Mbps cable, and nothing has ever slowed down. If I download something over a couple of gigs I just get a glass of water and it’s done.

Do you have a data cap? The cable provider near me charges you $10 for every 50GB over 1.25TB monthly. A while ago they offered an "unlimited" plan without that cap at a higher monthly rate.

I've never heard of a fiber connection with a data cap like that. I ended up moving to fiber eventually, it was cheaper for the same speed and the upload speed matched the download speed as well.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#23

Post by utopiah »

Yep... was on the countryside for the Summer in places so small they didn't even have a bakery, which in France matters.

What did they have though? Optic fiber, high bandwidth, low latency, reliable and for a very low price.

Honestly I think ADSL was already enough for most people, I mean non professionals, but now I think France has the infrastructure for a good enough Internet for the next few decades. I can't fathom normal usages that would need higher bandwidth and lower latency.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#25

Post by ZeroCool2u »

I have 5 Gbps symmetric fiber in NYC with a Google Fi data only sim as a built-in failover to 5G on my router. It did require some specialized hardware, but it's truly a wonder coming from a kid that experienced dial up.

It really changes the calculus on some things with large volumes of data on my desktop. Admittedly, my desktop maxes out at 2.5 Gbps, but everything else in the house keeps happily chugging along.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#27

Post by harel »

Is that fiber to the property or fiber to the cabinet? In the UK I get FTTC which means the last bit from the cabinet down the road to my house is copper wires. My speed is bottlenecked by that. New builds and flats get services for the building giving them full fiber. My fiber is only as fast as my copper wire to the cabinet allows

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#28

Post by bhouston »

Canada also has pretty fiber coverage in urban areas but only for a single provider, Bell Canada, and its legislatively allowed resellers like TekSavvy.

It is really fast and reliable. You can get symmetric 8Gbps for around $100/month USD ($140/month CAD.)

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#29

Post by lotsofpulp »

bob1029 wrote: post #8
MrGando wrote: post #3

And here in SF we have like 55%? Been waiting for it for 10 years in my hood.

I think it's pretty wild that parts of the Houston metro have a better ISP story than SF. The last home I was in had multiple competing fiber providers available. My current home is in the middle of the woods and I have a 5gbps symmetric link.

For a new build or overhead wiring, it's a trivial cost that is easily recouped.

For buried infrastructure where the coaxial cable company already sells internet, you will almost never recoup your investment to bury new fiber and run it to all the homes. You can have the superior product, but insufficient people will pay enough more than the existing coaxial cable prices.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#30

Post by ishtanbul »

ZeroCool2u wrote: post #25

I have 5 Gbps symmetric fiber in NYC with a Google Fi data only sim as a built-in failover to 5G on my router. It did require some specialized hardware, but it's truly a wonder coming from a kid that experienced dial up. It really changes the calculus on some things with large volumes of data on my desktop. Admittedly, my desktop maxes out at 2.5 Gbps, but everything else in the house keeps happily chugging along.

get a 5Gig network card if you have a spare PCIe or M2 slot on your motherboard. should be about $30.
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