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Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

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Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#111

Post by asdff »

throw0101a wrote: post #82
ubanholzer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland moved 40% of all freight traffic kilometerd to the rails too, which is really a lot. ( https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfsstatic/dam/assets/10547450/maste... )

The passenger modal share for rail in CH is 21%: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag... For the US it is 0.3%. Given that CH is land-locked, it's not surprising that freight modal share is 46%, because it has to get inland from a port in some way: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag... This is higher than the US, but give that 127M Americans (40%) live in counties…

Not everyone living along a coast has an appropriate coast to establish a harbor sufficient for shipping. If you live in big sur you still get your crap from china delivered inland from the port of Los Angeles.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#112

Post by rsynnott »

jsu32 wrote: post #29
singhrac wrote: post #4

I would honestly pay significantly higher taxes if we could get Swiss-quality train service in parts of the US (and especially if they have good internet). When I traveled Boston to NY in the past, compare my flight experience vs Amtrak. Flight: - Take $25 Uber to airport and get there 1 hour early to go through security and wait. - Fly to JFK (1h 20m) - land, wait to get off, go through terminal again, then take $50…

I love trains and I'm a EU-born US resident, so I get it. It's a density problem though. US is super sparsely populated. Outside of the northeast corridor (DC NYC Boston) the rest is too spread out with few exceptions to support train service. The US highway system is like spaghetti for good reason.

I don't buy this at all. California is only slightly less dense than France (and contains significant basically-empty bits that wouldn't need to be considered; if you're just looking at habitable area it's probably MORE dense than France). Compare their railway systems.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#113

Post by asdff »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #89
macspoofing wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is holding US back in public transport? Rail freight transport. What is holding Europe in rail freight transport? Passenger rail. You choose one or the other. Personally I think America made (or fell into) the correct decision.

How so? If we prioritized passengers, then rail freight will regularly take several extra hours to get places. Would that even be a real problem? Would anything else bad happen?

That would be a huge problem. You'd see freeways entirely congested with trucking instead. Freeways that are congested enough as it is. We need to build a grade separated passenger rail network.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#114

Post by ggm »

wpdev_63 wrote: post #53
singhrac wrote: post #4

I would honestly pay significantly higher taxes if we could get Swiss-quality train service in parts of the US (and especially if they have good internet). When I traveled Boston to NY in the past, compare my flight experience vs Amtrak. Flight: - Take $25 Uber to airport and get there 1 hour early to go through security and wait. - Fly to JFK (1h 20m) - land, wait to get off, go through terminal again, then take $50…

The main problem with the US interstate train system is that it's run on freight train lines. Amtrak and Acela do not actually own the railway they use and they can only go a certain speed due to the grade of the track. I don't think you would be willing to pay the amount of taxes you would need to, to completely redo the railways haha. Anyways Amtrak are barely turning a profit as it is and while it would be great t…

> I don't think you would be willing to pay the amount of taxes you would need to, to completely redo the railways haha.

This premise feels wrong: The Swiss, German, Chinese, Spanish experience is that people pay to have high speed rail services, and the G20 economies in that list pay high marginal rates of taxes just fine, for this outcome.

The "you" here is conditionally the "you" of current social mores America. It by no means is the only recent experience of America, under presidents to Reagan, the top rate of marginal tax was significantly higher than at present, and people paid.

Perhaps, if Americans were made to pay more supertax they would discover sooner than you think, how few people it inconvenienced (Bezos) and how many it benefitted.

"you" might be surprised how low the increment was on your tax base, to fund the state investment your country needs, taking into account the superwealthy, and corporate tax evasion.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#115

Post by rsynnott »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #32

They are using the same technique they use in Japan. In Tokyo, you get full signal strength, wherever you are (even in tunnels going underwater). That's because they have mobile antennas everywhere , including lining all the railway lines. I'll bet that their service ain't so cheap, though (I was roaming, when I was there, and that was definitely not cheap).

> I was roaming, when I was there, and that was definitely not cheap

Roaming prices are effectively set by your home network, not the foreign one. My network (Vodafone Ireland) charges a flat fee of 5 euro a day (with a fairly miserly 500MB/day data cap) for most non-European countries, for instance, but some other Irish networks have completely different pricing structures for it.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#116

Post by rsynnott »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #103
ubanholzer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheapest 4g flatrate subscription in CH is 25€/m. Average is 60-70€/m

I don't understand how the more expensive providers can still have customers. Same network, same conditions, different label on the box, 3x the price, at a price point where it should matter to most people...

Not sure about the situation in Switzerland, but it might not be the same network. I use a somewhat more expensive provider (20 euro topup/month for 10GB data, unlimited everything else), because the one that does it for 10 euro is using a different tower network with poorer coverage and much higher congestion (at least in the areas I'm concerned with).

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#118

Post by throwaway1777 »

pansinghkoder wrote: post #106
likpok wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's something written for non-industry people: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2010/07/22/high-speed-rai... Your article notes that rail freight costs are much lower in the US (for shippers), while profitability is high. That suggests that the US rail network is... good for freight? I don't know about Portland, but SF has almost no freight traffic. The caltrain tracks don't go anywhere (what are you going to do…

Exactly so coming back to my original question: my cannot US invest in high speed train from 4th and King to Napa valley? What is holding it back?

NIMBYs. No one in napa or Marin counties want a train.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#119

Post by pilsetnieks »

Nextgrid wrote: post #92
laurencerowe wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a plane you're usually in direct line of sight to many, many mobile network towers at once. Mobile phone use is banned on planes because of the interference this could cause with ground based networks.

This is not entirely correct. The majority of mobile antennas are directional and are optimised to cover a ground area and not waste transmit power broadcasting into the air.

They could have been aimed at an angle in a mountainous area.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#120

Post by sgustard »

wpdev_63 wrote: post #53
singhrac wrote: post #4

I would honestly pay significantly higher taxes if we could get Swiss-quality train service in parts of the US (and especially if they have good internet). When I traveled Boston to NY in the past, compare my flight experience vs Amtrak. Flight: - Take $25 Uber to airport and get there 1 hour early to go through security and wait. - Fly to JFK (1h 20m) - land, wait to get off, go through terminal again, then take $50…

The main problem with the US interstate train system is that it's run on freight train lines. Amtrak and Acela do not actually own the railway they use and they can only go a certain speed due to the grade of the track. I don't think you would be willing to pay the amount of taxes you would need to, to completely redo the railways haha. Anyways Amtrak are barely turning a profit as it is and while it would be great t…

The US is willing to run at a $3T deficit so the concept of needing tax money or fiscal viability to build things is tenuous at best.

Did taxpayers get slammed when we built the transcontinental RR?

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