Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, you know, just spend 5% less on the military :)
What does the $375B in interest payments buy America?
The ability to keep borrowing.
Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
281–290 of 362 posts
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#282I 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.
This is why you left Europe - because you cannot pace with the quality of European things and you want to align with USA standards. /JOKE
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#283I 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 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 competition.
The version I read for Germany was that when the mobile broadband spectrum was originally auctioned off, the purchase price for the spectrum was too high. So the pensioners and other investors who bought in demanded a juicy return on investment despite overpaying, resulting in high prices and presumably less money for investments in the network.
For the fixed line broadband network in Germany, its quite substandard despite the country being generally good at infrastructure. The reason can be traced back to corruption, where a decision was made to rollout copper backbone instead of fiber optic, which was the original decision. Article in German but copy and paste with Google translate:
https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/langsames-internet-i...
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
The system is unreasonable, but your figures are exaggerations. You are comparing the price of a budget airline flight, booked at least several days, if not weeks, in advance, with a first class train ticket bought on the day of departure. Departing tomorrow afternoon, an EasyJet flight is £115. I don't know if the morning flights are sold out, or are currently not running, but they presumably exist. The train is £77…
The figures can be skewed both ways in fairness. I had a look for travelling for the weekend of Nov 20th (it's a month from this weekend) on Friday and back Monday, leaving after 8:30am both days. Trainline is quoting me £190 return. Easyjet is £60. As an aside, the train schedule and prices seem substantially cheaper than this time last year. I don't ever recall there being availability on the super off peak trains…
A super off peak single is £78 each way on Edinburgh-London, Anytime £166. This puts a cap on the cost which air travel doesn't have. Often will be significantly cheaper if you
There's no such thing as 'availability' on trains, you can buy a ticket from the ticket machine without booking in advance. You may not get a seat for the whole journey, but it's better IMO than not being able to board at all (like when flights sell out).
The problem with flying is if you want to do it very last minute it can cost an absolute fortune, whereas the train is capped by the walk on ticket prices. Plus with the train you don't need to book it if you don't want, and can literally buy a ticket minutes from departure with a known maximum price, so you don't need to worry about getting a refund or changing the booking if your plans change.
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not the same network. There are three providers in Switzerland. From my own experience the most expensive one (Swisscom, by whom this article is) has much better coverage in the mountaineous areas compared to the other two.
It is, Wingo is 24 CHF a month on the Swisscom network. Its also owned by Swisscom. The main differentiation is support.
Well, thanks for telling me that!
I went swisscom-> mbudget on my fixed line but it seems wingo offers the full 1gbs up/dow for less than I pay now for mbudget mini. Guess I'll change soon
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm Swiss, programming tax declaration and calculation software. Your example seems to take into account only the social security deduction. The ~92000 will indeed appear in your bank account, but at the end of the year you will have to pay income and wealth tax on that. Switzerland is one of a few countries where taxes are not automatically deducted from your salary (except for expats and some cornercases). You are…
I think the 92k is correct for net income, breakdown would be something like: Gross salary: 100k Family allowance: ~300 x 3 x 12 = ~10.8k Salary deductions (unemployment, retirement, social insurances): ~11k Taxes: ~8k
This could be never ending. But I'd like to say that factors like tax rate progression (higher tax if you earn more), marital state, children and location (where you live in Switzerland) have a huge impact on the overall tax burden. So comparing 2 cities with very specific input variables will lead to very wrong conclusions when applying the results to make a statement about differences between two countries.
Side note: Including the significant deductions for payments into your retirement fund seems problematic to me, as you will get that money back at some point. And then there are more factors that have a big impact, like church and wealth tax.
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Building such a network is less economically feasible in America compared to Europe or China because of America's suburban sprawl. First, it'll cost more to build because you'll need to clear out a route of suburban housing to get between any two cities. Second, the population density of the US is less concentrated, which makes getting to the station take longer, and improves the relative attractiveness of other tran…
The Northeast has a density comparable to Europe. I do agree on the culture issue, however - Americans definitely prefer cars by default. Although in the Washington-Philadelphia-NYC-Boston corridor it may be possible, if there is ever a culture of large public works again.
Surely having big train stations with massive car parks just outside towns will fit well with car culture.
My other idea is high speed trains where you can take your car with you, like eurotunnel but faster.
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hard to understand for me why there even isn't any high-speed train service between large metropolitan areas in the US. As an example, in 2016 I took the train from New York to Montreal. The distance is only about 600 km, but the train ride took almost 12 hours! Part of that was due to the border checks of course, but even during the part in the States the train tucked along really slowly and had to stop multipl…
> which have priority over passenger trains it seems Historical reason: the rails were built by freight companies and not by the government like in most of Europe. For them, passenger trains are, at best, an afterthought that doesn't matter.
Specifically the freight companies own the lines and prioritize their own freight trains above passenger service.
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#289I 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 SBB is indeed amazing. Trains are in pristine condition, second class is first class or business class by most other countries standards, the toilets are clean and functional aboard any train I’ve ever taken with stocked water soap and paper (hello sncf, no water or soap or light even during the epidemics), the trains are ON TIME (like to the minute on time), they’re incredibly quiet, all long distance trains hav…
As a user of the SBB (Swiss railways) for over 30 years I have had a few mishaps (canceled or late trains, bad connections, etc) but, by and large, I have been happy with what I paid for transportation. It is very reliable and convenient. Something like this could not have been pulled off by a private entity. The government has to run a service like this. I am glad that we did not follow the lead of the UK during Maggie T's time and begin privatizing bits and pieces of a functional system.
Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland
#290Has anyone noticed that the comments here are only tangential to the topic of the heading, ie "stable internet on moving trains". Most are on the trains and the country where the trains are located. Not complaining; just my observation.