Live data from Hacker News

Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

fiber7.ch

31–40 of 59 posts

Re: Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

#31

The city of Zürich voted on having fiber to every home/building. The fiber is independently operated from the service providers (EWZ (City of Zürich electricity) and Swisscom manage the fiber). You can pick from as many as 15 different providers in the area of internet/television and phone [1] [1] https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/ewz/de/index/telecom/ewz_zuerin...

Wouldn't it be for the EWZ we would still be waiting for fiber.

I remember clearly how the telecoms, most notably Swisscom, argued that it was overkill and not necessary.

The telecoms also invested into massive lobbying efforts and an intense advertising blitz in order to kill the necessary referendums. (At least the first, I think when it came to the second referendum covering the rest of the city they where pretty mute. But then Swisscom was already in the boat).

The referendums where necessary, since the voting public needed to decide if the city owned utility is allowed to invest the money. Both referendums sailed pretty much through in a landslide.

Basically all public utilities in Zurich are city owned and operated. And while it may appear weird in other parts of the world, people here actually love their public utilities.

This probably has to do with really high service quality being quite reasonably priced. But I digress.

Re: Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

#32
Tangentially related: Init7 is one of the few providers here in Switzerland that offer native IPv6 connectivity to end-users (they might be the only one offering it to end-users).

This makes this already amazing offering doubly interesting because it would finally allow me to play with native IPv6

Re: Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

#33
post #30

The city of Zürich voted on having fiber to every home/building. The fiber is independently operated from the service providers (EWZ (City of Zürich electricity) and Swisscom manage the fiber). You can pick from as many as 15 different providers in the area of internet/television and phone [1] [1] https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/ewz/de/index/telecom/ewz_zuerin...

In this case though, this offering isn't using the fiber we voted for: >Im Gegensatz zu anderen FTTH Angeboten, die auf Layer-2 Plattformen von städtischen Werken basieren, benutzt Fiber7 eine komplett eigene Internet-Infrastruktur. ( https://www.fiber7.ch/fiber7-verfugbarkeit/ ) Loosely translated this means that they are using their own infrastructure not based on what the EWZ has already built. Considering how har…

I think you've misread that. They don't use the layer 2 of EWZ, but they do use the fibers (layer 1).

Re: Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

#34
post #19
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just move inside a rack. There's a lot of buzzing noise, but it's cold, dark, and there's good internet access.

Mind explaining how living inside a rack is comparable to living in Tokyo? My apartment in Bunkyo, Tokyo is as quite as the one in Zurich, Switzerland was. And if that's too noisy there's lovely neighbourhoods like Kichijoji that are even more quite. Where the "cold" and "dark" comes from I do not know, I'd recommend you visit here in summer and experience for yourself that it's anything but cold.

They weren't comparing Tokyo to a rack. They were using it as the next logical progression for improving your network speed.

Re: Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

#35
post #18
post #13

Seoul, South Korea. Gigabit internet is available for ~$18/month.

Same price (~$18) for gigabit internet in Romania, but it's not symmetrical.

I saw a Steam (Valve) graph for Dota 2 download speeds. Roughly 8 million players, spread across the world, quite evenly.

The "fastest" countries were South Korea, Sweden, the Netherlands and Romania.

We might be lacking quite a few things, but Internet speed is not one of them :)

Re: Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

#36
post #33
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case though, this offering isn't using the fiber we voted for: >Im Gegensatz zu anderen FTTH Angeboten, die auf Layer-2 Plattformen von städtischen Werken basieren, benutzt Fiber7 eine komplett eigene Internet-Infrastruktur. ( https://www.fiber7.ch/fiber7-verfugbarkeit/ ) Loosely translated this means that they are using their own infrastructure not based on what the EWZ has already built. Considering how har…

I think you've misread that. They don't use the layer 2 of EWZ, but they do use the fibers (layer 1).

>Im Gegensatz zu anderen FTTH Angeboten, die auf Layer-2 Plattformen von städtischen Werken basieren, benutzt Fiber7 eine komplett eigene Internet-Infrastruktur. (https://www.fiber7.ch/fiber7-verfugbarkeit/)

I think you misread that he misread that. It translates to this:

"Contrary to other fiber-to-the-home offers, which are based on Layer-2 platforms by the municipal works, fiber7 uses an infrastructure all its own.".

That strongly implies they use different fibers.

Re: Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

#37
post #11

Well that shits on my 12Mbit/1Mbit here in London that costs nearly that much...

Where in London are you and which provider are you with? Pretty much all cabinets in London now support FTTC so it should be pretty easy to get 80/20 and plenty of ISPs are offering unlimited FTTC for around £20/month. You might want to consider switching.

Re: Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

#38

The city of Zürich voted on having fiber to every home/building. The fiber is independently operated from the service providers (EWZ (City of Zürich electricity) and Swisscom manage the fiber). You can pick from as many as 15 different providers in the area of internet/television and phone [1] [1] https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/ewz/de/index/telecom/ewz_zuerin...

Wouldn't it be for the EWZ we would still be waiting for fiber. I remember clearly how the telecoms, most notably Swisscom, argued that it was overkill and not necessary. The telecoms also invested into massive lobbying efforts and an intense advertising blitz in order to kill the necessary referendums. (At least the first, I think when it came to the second referendum covering the rest of the city they where pretty…

> Basically all public utilities in Zurich are city owned and operated. And while it may appear weird in other parts of the world, people here actually love their public utilities. This probably has to do with really high service quality being quite reasonably priced. But I digress.

Here in the states, our public utilities are more often than not of poor quality for the price. For example, I lived in Atlanta, GA for many years. Much of its sewer system dates to the rebuilding of the city after the Civil War. It's in violation of federal environmental laws, and when it rains too much it overflows and dumps untreated sewage into the local river.

I'm not sure why municipal services are so bad in the states versus in parts of Europe. After all, there's no private water/sewer company lobbying to blame for the water/sewer system in Atlanta (or Chicago or D.C. or the numerous U.S. cities with similar problems). I suspect it has to do with the locus of power vis-a-vis urban and suburban voters in the U.S. versus Europe. That is to say, most U.S. metro areas take the form of poorer central cities supported by wealthier suburbs, at least to a greater degree than I think is true in Europe.[1] Thus, there is less concentrated political will, as well as less money, to spent on infrastructure within cities.

Regardless of the reasons, I think many people in the U.S. are justifiably skeptical of public utilities. I personally would very much trust the city of Zurich to build my internet infrastructure. I wouldn't so much trust Atlanta, or Wilmington, or Philadelphia, or Baltimore . . . maybe Chicago or New York City. I say this as someone who has lived or worked in these cities, and relied on the municipal infrastructure more than the vast majority of Americans (because I take public transit and don't like to drive).

[1] For example: Atlanta has a core city only a little bit larger than Zurich proper (though only 1/3 as dense), but has a metro area 3x as large as the Zurich metro area. The vast majority of the wealthy voters in Atlanta live in the surrounding suburbs. Thus, funding for road construction to get these folks to and from work in the city takes priority over funding for services used by people who reside in the city.

Re: Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

#39
xDSL-prices are still quite high here, at least in Gèneve.

I'm not 100% sure if Swisscom has a monopoly as I have only lived here since January but here are Swisscom's price list for xDSL (rough calculation from CHF to EUR):

5/0,5 Mbit: 30 euro

10/1 Mbit: 40 euro

20/2 Mbit: 55 euro

For these connections you also have to pay for a fixed telephone line (hello Swisscom, this is the 21-century, not the 19:th!) which costs 20 euro per month.

(Source: http://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/internet/internet-at-h...)

Back in Finland I got a 50/10Mbit connection for 40 euros which included IPTV.

Re: Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month

#40

xDSL-prices are still quite high here, at least in Gèneve. I'm not 100% sure if Swisscom has a monopoly as I have only lived here since January but here are Swisscom's price list for xDSL (rough calculation from CHF to EUR): 5/0,5 Mbit: 30 euro 10/1 Mbit: 40 euro 20/2 Mbit: 55 euro For these connections you also have to pay for a fixed telephone line (hello Swisscom, this is the 21-century, not the 19:th!) which cost…

Fiber in Zurich is a lot cheaper, eg. 20Mbit symmetric is about 25 euro with a small but very competent ISP
Post reply on HN