211–220 of 464 posts
> The Free Market Lie Why is it a lie if Switzerland actually uses a free market and gets bonuses from it? Yeah, the idea with 1 common infrastructure is a positive aspect. It's interesting how they solve an issue with maintenance. But still, low prices and good quality of service are benefits of the free market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Corruption, aging infrastructure... There are developing ("third-world") countries that have better overall internet than the US.
I heard someone argue that because original phones rolled out in the US much earlier and more broadly, we spend all this money on copper wiring. Because Europe didn't have as much, they transitioned to fast cellular quickly. Being first does not mean you will be best certainly.
I've got 5gbps symmetric right now and I can barely use it. Steam is the only app that can get close to saturating the connection. There is another fiber provider and a docsis provider available. I live in a fairly rural area. There's more options than I care to evaluate at this point.
This article sounds like it was written pre-2020. Times have changed. At least in Texas ISP markets. Maybe others are still stuck in the old ways.
The article does not include the word "density" at all. Switzerland has 2.5x the population density that the US does. I absolutely believe that US regulation choices encourage telecom monopolies and suppresses service in the US, but it's impossible to make a credible argument for that without acknowledging the density challenges that the majority of the US (geographically) faces.
Density doesn't really make the sort of difference you might think. Every home in america has electricity and plumbing even though those utilities have the same density problem. Up until the rise of cell phones, every home had a telephone line as well. In many ways, the lack of density actually makes it easier for you to install new lines. It's a lot easier and faster to plow through a long strip of grass next to a h…
If endpoints are spread too far out, it's not hard technically to connect them, but it might be very expensive and not feasible economically.
If density is too high on the other hand (say NYC), it's becoming hard to technically connect, because, as you mentioned, there's already a lot of "stuff" there that you have to be careful about. But it might be much more interesting economically.
I think Switzerland just hits a sweet spot between these two. It's dense enough to be profitable but sparse enough to make construction still feasible. So essentially, we're just lucky.
This article came up before. It's heavy on the clickbait, if you couldn't guess from the title. Some important points that they leave out: - 25G internet isn't available everywhere in Switzerland. It's just the fastest tier available in some locations. - The United States is 85 times larger than Switzerland. The entire country of Switzerland is the size of a small US state. Covering the US with broadband is much hard…
Crazy idea but... Do I _need_ 25 Gb internet? Even when I had 1 Gb I never saturated the connection.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in NYC, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and yet Verizon Fios 1 Gbps is my only option. I tried to upgrade to Fios 2 Gbps, but it's not available. Spectrum only goes to 200Mbps; no other providers in my area. I have no idea if Switzerland is any better, but the US situation in 2026 is appalling. If we're this bad in NYC, imagine what someone in rural America goes through.
It is harder to install fiber in densely populated areas than in some backcountry farm. Imagine tearing open a busy street in NYC for a few weeks to install fiber vs. digging a trench in the dirt next to the farm road. Which one do you think costs more? For which do you think you need to jump through 1001 bureaucratic hoops?
In my country, fiber is run to my apartment building and through the technical shafts. Very easy for the telco: to connect a unit, they only need to branch off from the technical shaft. I imagine the total cost to connect 200 apartment units is much lower than connecting 200 farms or 200 houses in the suburbs, even with the red tape.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in NYC, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and yet Verizon Fios 1 Gbps is my only option. I tried to upgrade to Fios 2 Gbps, but it's not available. Spectrum only goes to 200Mbps; no other providers in my area. I have no idea if Switzerland is any better, but the US situation in 2026 is appalling. If we're this bad in NYC, imagine what someone in rural America goes through.
It is harder to install fiber in densely populated areas than in some backcountry farm. Imagine tearing open a busy street in NYC for a few weeks to install fiber vs. digging a trench in the dirt next to the farm road. Which one do you think costs more? For which do you think you need to jump through 1001 bureaucratic hoops?
That doesn't really pass the smell-test, especially not compared to other explanations like national differences in regulation and competition.
Crazy idea but... Do I _need_ 25 Gb internet? Even when I had 1 Gb I never saturated the connection.
…and 640kb RAM is more than enough.