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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

#151

Post by newsclues »

Aeolun wrote: post #141
ggm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I…

Or, you know, just spend 5% less on the military :)

What does the $375B in interest payments buy America?

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

#152

Post by lawl »

waltherg wrote: post #59
Scoundreller wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile in Canada, our providers use the “it’s a big country so that’s why it’s stupidly expensive in the few percent of the territory that’s covered” excuse. Meanwhile, in Europe you can take a train and have good coverage in the middle of nowhere through a base station that probably sees 20 minutes of heavy use per day...

German here. The latter statement doesn't really hold for us. Super patchy coverage on trains.

> German here. The latter statement doesn't really hold for us. Super patchy coverage on trains.

Germany has a different issue, you have multiple providers and those combined have pretty good coverage. I visit germany frequently by train and roam and it kicks me from provider to provider.

Iirc your providers are mandated by the gov to also service these rather unprofitable areas, which they do. They split up the uninhabited regions, build a few antennas there. So if you have a plan with a national provider you get shitty coverage. If you roam and can use any provider, it's actually mostly fine (in my experience).

I don't understand why they don't do national roaming in these areas.

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

#153

Post by bogomipz »

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…

>"Anyways Amtrak are barely turning a profit as it is and while it would be great to have Euro quality train lines, ..."

There's no reason that the North Eastern commuter corridor that runs Washington D.C. to Boston couldn't be profitable if Amtrak were to operate as a series of independent regional entities though. The economics are certainly there. Instead Amtrak is a single entity which services large swathes of the country for which there is little demand for rail service.

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

#154

Post by inquirerofsorts »

ggm wrote: post #114
wpdev_63 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I…

China high speed rail growth over 9 years. It's an excellent system and I much prefer it to domestic aviation.

https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*Jj_k4U1AwuB5Ia-9oHuJKQ.gi...

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

#155

Post by ycombonator »

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…

Amtrak was Biden’s baby for 40 years and Hunter was a board member. You get what you vote for.

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

#156

Post by Aeolun »

umvi wrote: post #145
Aeolun wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, just spend 5% less on the military :)

From what I understand other countries (especially EU) essentially contract out defense to the US for economical reasons (i.e. so they can afford to spend more of their budget on social services and less on military). If US cuts military budget it means EU will have to increase military budget by more than the US cut to make up for it.

Yeah, so there’s some positive externalities too ;)

It’s not healthy for Europe to be so dependent on the US, as has been proven over the past 4 years.

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

#157

Post by ethbr0 »

Naac wrote: post #134
rootusrootus wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to justify investing in rail. At best, in most parts of the US it is slower, more expensive, and less convenient. There are some edge cases that it makes real sense for, but everywhere else is better served by cars and airplanes.

>> It's hard to justify investing in rail. At best, in most parts of the US it is slower, more expensive, and less convenient But that's because we haven't invested in it! Before the 1960s most roads in the US were also terrible, so by that logic we shouldn't have invested in the Highway/Freeway Interstate system.

Seriously.

Here's the Amtrak network: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Am...

Here's the US freight rail network: https://i.imgur.com/4TYsU_d.webp?maxwidth=1024&fidelity=medi...

You can't tell me we can't do better.

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

#158

Post by Firerouge »

the8472 wrote: post #73
ngngngng wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers could use small local hard drives and download what you need instantly. All of your documents would be backed up into the cloud because your entire hard drive would essentially be "the cloud"

Bandwidth does not eliminate light speed latency or guarantee IOPS. Flipping through an image album or loading game assets could suffer.

With that much bandwidth, you'd just prefetch every single photo before the user was done viewing the first.

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

#159

Post by _AzMoo »

unpopular42 wrote: post #126
ggm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I…

Swiss taxes vary by location but are generally not higher than the US taxes. So it's not about paying more, it's about wasting less.

It's about priorities. Swiss defense spending as a percentage of GDP is 0.675%. US defense spending as a percentage of GDP is 3.2%. I just picked a simple example, but you will find similar disparities across the board.

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

#160

Post by ethbr0 »

csande17 wrote: post #148
supernova87a wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UI of the Amtrak fare / ticket finding website is terrible.

The website is bad, but phoning Amtrak actually worked pretty well for me! There wasn't much of a wait, the staff were friendly and knowledgeable, and they were able to really quickly plan out complicated routes with multiple transfers and compare different options. (One wonders if they could make whatever fancy planning/booking system they use available to the public.) Admittedly this was a couple years ago, so it's…

> The website is bad, but phoning Amtrak actually worked pretty well for me!

Underappreciated these days: web is not always the priority method of interaction for people.

The web is great, but for historical or practical reasons a lot of people and businesses prefer other solutions.

E.g. construction workers and phones

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