Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by bobthepanda » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:55 AM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #248

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…

I find that perplexing about US politics in general. Any proposal on taxes and social benefits, throws off people that at a first glance shouldn't. Maybe large part of the voting base are millionaires.

There's the old quote misattributed to John Steinbeck:

> Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

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

#252

Post by Foivos » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:05 AM UTC

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 think in Japan the best way to have mobile Internet is to get a tourist SIM card from the airport. I do not recall the price, but I remember I had considered them fair. They might not be compatible with your phone though. The problem is with the supported bands and there is no way to fix it. It either works or it does not.

If you do not want to stop using your current SIM card or if you have an incompatible phone, you can rent an “egg”. It is a small mobile hotspot that your devices connect over WiFi. It is also useful if you are a group, because multiple people can connect to it, so you just get one.

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

#253

Post by adev_ » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:09 AM UTC

harha wrote: post #250

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…

Higher taxes won’t get stable and fast internet (or anything else being efficient) - neighboring Germany has high taxes, expensive services and very slow internet even within cities. Also the trains are notoriously unpunctual, and expensive compared to other EU countries. The cause of the internet seems to be a mix of the mobile frequency auctions that didn’t leave any money for a good network combined with low compe…

> The Swiss model seems to be to think of the consequences of policies before putting them in place, the lower taxes seem to be more of a result of that.

Outside of taxes, it is also a matter of political choices

The Swiss took the decision to develop the train as a first transport choice nationally... Even trucks transiting through Switzerland are loaded on trains.

And the result is there: They have a good network with a good service that unify the country.

That a strategy totally at the opposite of what USA and many European countries chose to do in the 90's: Close as many small train lines as possible and develop road transport.

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

#254

Post by moviuro » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:16 AM UTC

phab wrote: post #27

It'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 perf…

That data is indeed missing. FWIW, though: the French Railway Corporation (SNCF) has had WiFi for some years in the high speed (TGV[0]) lanes (though they have a data cap). I've had no issues with it so far[1,2]. That's a working solution in a ~320km/h (200mph) moving train as commercial offering.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV

[1] https://www.oui.sncf/tgv/services/internet-a-bord

[2] https://www.sncf.com/fr/offres-voyageurs/tgv-inoui/connectez...

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

#255

Post by MrBuddyCasino » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:16 AM UTC

harha wrote: post #250

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…

Higher taxes won’t get stable and fast internet (or anything else being efficient) - neighboring Germany has high taxes, expensive services and very slow internet even within cities. Also the trains are notoriously unpunctual, and expensive compared to other EU countries. The cause of the internet seems to be a mix of the mobile frequency auctions that didn’t leave any money for a good network combined with low compe…

> The Swiss model seems to be to think of the consequences of policies before putting them in place, the lower taxes seem to be more of a result of that.

This is a very good point. I suspect that because decision making is very local, they have functioning feedback loops: so you decided to spend too much money on a new fire truck? Well now you can't pay for the sports field renovations. People eventually learn.

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

#256

Post by BuildTheRobots » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:19 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #91

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handover is a massive non-trivial problem - I'm amazed you're the only one commenting on it. GSM-R was modification to the 2G mobile phone specification specifically to help with high speed handover, but being 2G it gives pretty awful data speeds (1mbit max iirc). If you google for LTE-R it seems there's special provisions to bring that fast handover ability to 4G & 5G networks. As well as the actual radio layer, you…

> your IP address has to move across That’s handled at a higher level though. If you manage to get the lower level handover running fast enough, the IP side of things shouldn’t be a problem (as all the traffic goes to the GGSN or whatever LTE’s equivalent of that is).

> the IP side of things shouldn’t be a problem (as all the traffic goes to the GGSN or whatever LTE’s equivalent of that is).

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. One of the things LTE started (and 5G continues) is to push more and more of this to the edge of the network. Traffic from the UE does get tunnelled through the Serving Gateway (S-GW), but there can be multiple SGW's on a network. Mobility management is also a big enough issue that the Mobility Management Entity (MME) is an entity unto itself on the block diagram.

It's also worth pointing out that eNodeB's (the radios) can now talk directly to each other via X2 and can actually hand over a subscriber without particularly involving the core network.

tldr: I think it's enough of a problem for it to be not entirely trivial.

https://yatebts.com/documentation/concepts/lte-concepts/

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

#257

Post by meerita » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:19 AM UTC

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 problem is that only benefits you. Most of the people would pay higher taxes so a small portion of the people appreciate the speed.

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

#258

Post by StanislavPetrov » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:23 AM UTC

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.

We already pay the taxes, but unfortunately we spend a trillion dollars a year maintaining our global military empire instead of shoring up our crumbling domestic infrastructure. Priorities!

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

#259

Post by red_admiral » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:30 AM UTC

ttul wrote: post #237

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'm quite sure Swiss taxes are lower than US taxes. A married person earning CHF 100,000 in Zurich with three kids will receive CHF 92,000 after tax and including the "family allowances", or thereabouts. In Washington State, a married person making $100,000/yr will take home only $83,666.

Does that include mandatory health insurance though? That's effectively an extra ring-fenced tax.

They're probably still lower than US taxes, but in Switzerland the difference between income after tax and actual take-home income can be significant.

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

#260

Post by MrBuddyCasino » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:30 AM UTC

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 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).

The US lacks the required density. Trains are by far the most expensive mode of mass transport per mile, both because of infrastructure and labor cost. Labor costs are higher than eg a plane because trains go much slower! In a personal car, there are no other labor costs. The natural monopoly on the network and the ensuing lack of competition doesn't help either.

Planes and electric autonomous cars are the better alternative for the US.