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Why Switzerland has 25 gbit internet and America doesn't

stefan.schueller.net

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

#411

Post by defrost »

Hikikomori wrote: post #410
phendrenad2 wrote: post #11

> Every home gets a dedicated 4-strand fiber line Author kind of glosses over this, like it's the setup to the point. But it's obvious that THIS is the point. The government did the hard work of running 25Gbit-capable fibre (4 of them!) to each and every house, and the ISP just has to run (25 * NumHouses)Gbit-capable fiber to the POP. In the United States, which has 250x the land as Switzerland but only 30x the popul…

Are all Americans living in single person houses spread out evenly over the entire land area?

Is there any other way to ranch spherical cows?

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

#412

Post by chaz6 »

Aurornis wrote: post #161

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…

On a similar note, there is 50G internet available in the UK, but there is only a single customer to my knowledge (on the Youfibre/Netomnia network). Another difference is that I believe Switzerland is using 25GBASE-X as the transport, whereas in the UK it is 50G-PON (alongside the regular XGS-PON service which most customers have).

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

#413

Post by danaris »

Hikikomori wrote: post #384
hibikir wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a geographical difference, but it has little to do with the deserts, and more to do with the actual density of where people live, where the US is also among the least dense in the world. Those suburbs with 0.3-0.5 acre lots, roads that need to be everywhere and quite wide, extending every distance, just aren't standard worldwide, and increase bespoke infrastructure costs. In a denser place you need more capacity…

Yeah that sounds impossible. How are these places able to get power, sewage or water? Do they all just have solar panels in their huge backyard or something? Did they just get the Internet with starlink?

...For rural places in America, at least, they don't get sewer or water lines run to them. They have a septic tank and a well.

Power lines are significantly easier to run than water/sewer.

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

#414

Post by Hikikomori »

danaris wrote: post #413
Hikikomori wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that sounds impossible. How are these places able to get power, sewage or water? Do they all just have solar panels in their huge backyard or something? Did they just get the Internet with starlink?

...For rural places in America, at least, they don't get sewer or water lines run to them. They have a septic tank and a well. Power lines are significantly easier to run than water/sewer.

The guy I responded to didn't describe something rural though.

Heard about every excuse possible in this thread. Cities are too dense, can't put fiber in the ground. Suburb yards are too big so not enough density. Rural have too much distance.

As if these things doesn't exist in Europe at all. In reality they do, we don't have fiber everywhere but we for certain have a lot more of it in areas that matches all excuses given.

Guess what makes it real easy to build out fiber? Whenever you're already digging for power, water, sewage, roadwork, whatever, you put some fiber down. But "efficient" capitalism doesn't work like that I guess.

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

#415

Post by bicepjai »

Aurornis wrote: post #161

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…

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

#416

Post by fmajid »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #65
not_your_vase wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, in Switzerland there is a thing, that if a product or service has the name "Swiss" in its name, then it can be sold for any price regardless of quality - and it will fly off the shelves. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. Swisscom is the biggest ISP in Switzerland - they charge high prices for very slow internet. But they have the word "Swiss" in their name, so it's okay to sell 100 Mbps connection…

There really is this bias — it’s crazy. Not just the name “Swiss,” but allusions to the Swiss flag, Swiss typography, other Swiss branding. It almost looks like some of the products are state run. (Also, the internet connection actually is phenomenally good.)

Swiss law does require an overwhelming majority of the value of a product be made in Switzerland to use Swiss flag branding, or even Swiss landmarks or other signifiers of Swiss-ness. That's why Toblerone had to remove the drawing of the Matterhorn they've had since forever on the side of their triangular tubes, because some production has been shifted to Poland.

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

#419

Post by onetokeoverthe »

vineyardmike wrote: post #298
Terr_ wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So wait, a good deal from an ISP requires just the right Goldilocks zone of not-too-rural and not-too-urban, and for some reason almost nowhere in the US qualifies even though it's more-common in other countries? That doesn't really pass the smell-test, especially not compared to other explanations like national differences in regulation and competition.

Nah it's BS. It's American-flavored capitalism that's the issue, and it's crushing the free-market. I live in SF - the densest US city on the west coast, and the densest US city after NYC. We have city-owned "dark fiber" run through (most?) every street. Any ISP can offer service by renting the connection to my house, as long as they service "the last hundred feet" from pole to door and the billing. I have about half…

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

#420

Post by slopinthebag »

andriamanitra wrote: post #230
slopinthebag wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would fiber to the house be a natural monopoly?

Because the fixed cost of deploying infrastructure (digging the fiber to the house) is extremely expensive compared to the marginal cost (of serving data over an already installed fiber). 20 different companies all digging their own fibers to the same house would be tremendously wasteful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

But you wouldn’t get 20 different fibres, just one sold to 19 different companies.
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