Amazing that they can achieve that yet I'm in the bay area and I'm in a never-ending war with Comcast to achieve 50mbp/s
Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
21–30 of 362 posts
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#22I 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'm in Edinburgh and have travelled to London fairly frequently. It's a £30 uber to the airport, arrive 2 hours early, £20 for a flight, and £25 for the Heathrow express. The other option is the train, it's 4.5 hours, comfortable, but costs £250. It's a much nicer journey, but regularly much more expensive.
Flying is just too cheap for the environment. 1 EUR per km for car/plain and 0.4-0.5 by train should be the minimum.
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
One interesting thing about the Swiss system is they've prioritized reliable connectivity and frequent service over high-speed service. They do have some higher speed rail, but nothing even as fast as their neighbors in France or Germany. I feel like we have a thing for high speed rail here in the US as an aspirational goal, but maybe we should be aiming for reliable regional connectivity as a first step. Austin to S…
TBH considering their mountainous terrain, already the lower speeds they achieve are quite a feat of engineering. Meanwhile a small storm upends most of Germany's rail network for a long time because they let trees grow close to the rails...
Leaves on the tracks is no joke, I found those Network Rail posters pretty amusing :)
https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/leaves-on-the-...
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#24Swiss mobile internet is fantastic. It works in trains, it works in the mountains, it works in the cities, it works everywhere. OK, the country is small, but still it is quite an achievement.
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...
It really depends where you go in Europe. In German mobile connections are notoriously bad. I've had moments where I'm standing in the middle of Aachen struggling to get a single byte through. Then there's Belgium (especially Flanders) where I can't remember the last time I didn't have at least solid HSPA+ available.
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
You wouldn't even need to pay higher taxes. The American system of private cars on public roads is dramatically more expensive than the Swiss train system.
The American train system is also drastically more expensive than the Swiss train system.
Cheaper to just move to Switzerland.
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#26And here in the US, the 2 most scenic amtrak routes, the Empire Builder and Zephr can't guarantee even 2G internet.
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#27It's interesting that they state that the train was moving, but not how fast. My understanding was that one of the challenges with doing good mobile broadband on trains (esp. for VoIP applications) is how seamlessly you manage the handover between cells makes a big difference to real-world usability. If the train was going pretty slowly that would obviously make your time-per-cell a lot higher / % of time spent performing handoff a lot lower...
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#28Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#29I 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.
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#30Earlier 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...
Surely population density plays a huge role in the relatively lower coverage of both US and Canada compared to Europe. Switzerland: 206/sqkm Germany: 240/sqkm Eurozone as a whole: ~100/sqkm Canada: ~4/sqkm USA: 35/sqkm
The key phrase in the comment you're replying to is "in the few percent of the territory that’s covered". The vast majority of the Canadian population live in highly urbanised pockets.