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Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

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

#181

Post by bombcar »

martinald wrote: post #151
harrall wrote: post #74

This article gets ahead of itself. The issue isn’t the splitting. There is no fiber to even split in most places. A lot of places in America had their “network” infra built 50-100 years ago on copper and no one wants to pay to basically rebuild all of it. I happen to live in an area where there are still above ground utilities. We got >5 gig fiber fast. We have 700Mbps 5G. I literally watched them string the fiber on…

I'ts almost certainly shared. 99% of FTTH is (X)G(S)-PON which shares the fibre over a few properties. Usually something like 32 max. The Swiss use point to point fibre (there are a few small pockets of this elsewhere). But in reality it is very hard to saturate. XGSPON has 10G/10G shared between the node. GPON has 2.4gbit down/1.2gbit up shared across the node. In reality point to point is not really a benefit in 99…

Residential 2.5gb equipment is just starting to appear as a “default” and 10gb is still pretty rare, though accessible if you want it.

I don’t even have 25gb and I’ve a home lab!

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

#182

Post by Havoc »

longislandguido wrote: post #143

Because Switzerland is the size of Maryland. Imagine pouring all federal resources into one cramped state. I thought spamming your own blog was not allowed here.

>Imagine pouring all federal resources into one cramped state.

Bit silly to compare the size of countries but not scaling resources correspondingly.

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

#183

Post by bombcar »

mft_ wrote: post #61

I have a gentle rule, which is when discussing (geo)politics with friends, we should try not to use Switzerland as an example. It's just too good, too rational, too sensible, too well run, in myriad ways that other countries should be able to emulate, but consistently and constantly don't.

Switzerland and Japan should be excluded in most discussions - what they can do has little bearing on “the real world” ;)

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

#184

Post by ceejayoz »

mgfist wrote: post #179
ceejayoz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland has a population larger than all but ~11 US states.

It's got 9m people. The US has 30x the people and 250x the space. It's not comparable.

So why do we struggle to get the infrastructure to work in dense urban areas still? Or even just “not Wyoming”?

Switzerland and California have the same population density. Why can’t CA build high speed rail?

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

#185

Post by dangus »

Before I start with my real comment I'll point out that the AI slop images really detract from this article and the author should stop.

To be fair to America here, it's pretty well served overall and is doing a lot better than the past. Average speeds are at around 100 Mbps with extremely widespread advanced 5G networks doing even better than that.

Cellular in particular is an area where the USA still seems to be ahead of most places, although they certainly pay for it. (Even that has gotten way, way better. I'm getting really nice MVNO service with unlimited data and even a decent unlimited tethering plan for less than $30/month)

25 Gigabit is nice but that's so expensive on the client device side to the point where it's basically unattainable for any consumer. Your average consumer primarily uses the Internet via WiFi devices that might max out at 300Mbps practical speeds or lower depending on when they purchased their devices and WiFi access point and their distance from it.

Then you've got the problem of the speed on the other end. 25Gb fiber is great until you realize that the server you are downloading from is only going to give you 1/100th a lot of the times.

I haven't even mentioned the fact that you're now adding CPU and SSD bottlenecks to the equation. I'm pretty sure 25Gb/s is higher than the maximum write speed on my SSD.

I have gigabit fiber at home and the ability to buy faster speeds from my ISP but I find the idea totally pointless when that means I would have to buy $500 in networking equipment (if not more) and possibly rewire my home (currently sketchy Cat 5e that seems to be installed poorly and I'm lucky to have that). I even have the latest WiFi 7 from a highly reputable prosumer brand along with very new WiFi 7 and 6E 6Ghz client devices but the highest speed I see using those devices where I want to use them is around 600Mbps.

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

#186

Post by bigstrat2003 »

thelastgallon wrote: post #170

Most states in America ban municipal fiber. They saw EPB (Chattanooga) and said, no, we must make sure that doesn't ever happen again. That is how 'free' market is done in US, all the rules are to make sure the richest people become richer.

I agree that's a scourge. But of course, it would be very disingenuous to call that a free market. It's not free due to corporate interference, which is why the situation is so bad for consumers.

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

#187

Post by michaelsshaw »

mft_ wrote: post #61

I have a gentle rule, which is when discussing (geo)politics with friends, we should try not to use Switzerland as an example. It's just too good, too rational, too sensible, too well run, in myriad ways that other countries should be able to emulate, but consistently and constantly don't.

Lets just exclude the best example, as everyone knows, we should never try to be the best. Being the best is dumb, liberal and possibly communist. Settling for 105th, that's freedom and democracy baby.

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

#188

Post by simoncion »

nothinkjustai wrote: post #169
simoncion wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most markets inherently turn non-free when left unsupervised. That's the insight that folks like Keynes came to (as does any honest, informed observer with two or more functioning brain cells). That's why anti-trust and competition-preserving regulators and laws are essential. Without them, a very few powerful players form [0] cartels and/or tri/du/monopolies and enrich themselves vastly out of proportion with the va…

No they don’t. What happens is that people want to manipulate the market for a variety of reasons, so they do that, and then really really smart people come along later and try to claim that those manipulators weren’t actually the problem but the solution! It is completely backwards, like reversing cause and effect. It’s like blaming a person for standing in the path of a bullet instead of the one firing the gun. Wan…

> No they don’t.

Yes, they do. Price competition and R&D are expensive activities. Businesses seek to maximize profit, as they're not charities or governmental entities. Neutralizing competition (whether by eliminating it or colluding with it) and entering into private agreements with suppliers and vendors to box out any potential upstarts increases profit. Another fine way for a monopoly or cartel to increase profit is to make their product cheaper to produce by adulterating it with inferior ingredients, but mislead customers about the fact of the quality loss, the reason for the quality loss, or both.

The natural stable state of a profit-seeking business is the establishment of a monopoly or cartel. You get the most profit when there is neither a need to compete on price nor a need to expend resources on improving one's product.

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

#189

Post by djoldman »

toofy wrote: post #175
tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of things you can do in a rich, tiny, homogenous country that you can't do in a enormous, diverse country. If my house were a country, I'd be in the top 0.1% of household internet speeds compared to other countries. Obviously everyone should be just like me!

> There are a lot of things you can do in a rich, tiny, homogenous country that you can't do in an enormous, diverse country. US states are little islands entirely capable of doing things like building infrastructure. There is no excuse for our states and their lack of movement, certainly not “the entire country is just tooooo big. whoa is us.” nonsense.

Yes, that's true for population.

But all except 9 US states are larger in geographic area and only 5 have a higher population density.

Those are pretty salient statistics when you're talking about infrastructure that links houses.

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

#190

Post by WalterBright »

kulahan wrote: post #165
hrimfaxi wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this line of thinking. The spreading of a false rumor is an example of a competitive marketplace? If this took place in a different domain wouldn't it be fraud? That it was in the public benefit seems orthogonal.

Yes, if a simple unsubstantiated rumor is enough to get your competitors to spend potentially millions of dollars to fight you, that's a competition. Literally what else could it be? It can be two things, anyways. You can utilize fraud to manage your competitors expectations. CEOs lie constantly about the state their products are in, in order to drum up more sales. It has absolutely zero requirement to be beneficial…

> They're also competing to make as much profit as possible, which has effectively zero benefit for the public.

The end result is plenty of cheap stuff for people to buy. It's why free markets have full supermarkets and socialist markets have long lines.

Take the free market in software, for example. My entire software stack on my linux box cost me $0.

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