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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

#431

Post by not_your_vase »

mike_hearn wrote: post #373
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…

Happy Swisscom customer here. I decided the price is worth it. The internet they sell is the same speed as everyone else, gigabit is gigabit. Yes there are ISPs with lower prices, like Init7. DO NOT USE INIT7!! I signed up for them some years ago back when gigabit was rarer, I liked their price and nerd orientation for things like IPv6. Big, big, mistake. Thoroughly awful company. The problem: my wife wanted to watch…

Everything is swiss quality when it works. My mobile subscription is at Swisscom, but I downgraded it to call/text only PAYG years ago. First I wanted (mobile) internet connection on my phone. I checked on their website, they had some monthly package for 10-or-so CHF, which I wanted.

The customer service never heard of it, and signed me up for a 5CHF/day package without asking me. That was a lot of fun doing it back - initially they were also pointing to random points in the contract. But they could never find the part where I actually asked them to subscribe me to something that I didn't want.

Afterwards they could never make 4G/5G internet work reliably around my home (which is pretty funny, because they have a tower literally above my head, and another 40 meters away), it kept going unresponsive for 30-40 seconds at random times. I did ping-pong with their customer service for about a months before I gave up, cancelled internet part and switched to PAYG.

At least they still send me spam - I keep clicking the unsubscribe link, but they are not bothered by it.

I just want to illustrate that there are bad experiences with all providers.

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

#432

Post by parineum »

lyu07282 wrote: post #281
parineum wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its the exact cancer of an ideology that made US and European infrastructure a joke. The cancer isn't deregulation or regulation but rather regulatory capture. Making the barrier of entry to the market so high that nobody can compete with existing players. Nearly every dysfunctional market in the US could be made better by deregulation, not because regulation is bad but because it's badly regulated.

> Making the barrier of entry to the market so high that nobody can compete with existing players. You have to understand that some things can not be different. Lets take an example that is simpler, that even libertarians might understand: Streets, you can not privatize streets. You can not have a market where companies build streets and compete for customers to use their streets. Because you can not build 5 differen…

We have private streets in California.

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

#433

Post by parineum »

soperj wrote: post #261
parineum wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"made in" is completely different. A higher price is justified by supporting Americans in some way, rather than somewhere offshore. This is more like McDonald's putting a maple leaf in their logo in Canada. It changes nothing but, apparently, Canadians like it more (I frequently watch Canadian television and non-canadian companies are frequently adding a leaf somewhere in the advertising).

That's how we can tell they aren't Canadian. Feels like it's only U.S companies that do that, because that's what works in the States.

Explain Canadian Tire

https://retail-insider.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/image-...

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

#434

Post by taveras »

mlrtime wrote: post #398
taveras wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a false equivalence to compare working in a company to have the same scaling problems as implementing policies to set up broadband infrastructure.

Not really at all. Taking politics out of it. If you wanted to start a 25gbps project today, who do you think could get it done quicker. A small local municipality with a few network engineers. Or getting a Federal agency to do it? My money is on the municipality.

I agree that a smaller municipality would be more successful, but not because they are smaller.

The municipality is a more concentrated interest, and more motivated to deliver on a solution that works for their constituents.

Compare that to the federal government needing to execute a national “Interstate Highway for broadband” mega-project. The federal government can and has executed these kinds of projects, but it needs to consider different things than the municipalities.

Extending the highway metaphor, a smaller municipality can pave local roads just as quickly as the federal government can build highways.

Efficiency is not a perfect function of government size.

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

#435

Post by callmeal »

ipdashc wrote: post #174
callmeal wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I see that it has a size of about 85.5 thousand square miles (and about 2 million people). >I've never understood the value in comparing relatively densely populated European countries to America. The practical realities of each just make them quite different in terms of basic utilities and infrastructure. That's the lie everyone in America likes to tell themselves - it's very easy to provide electricity and phone s…

In fairness, the phone network practically took a century to get fully set up, was quite expensive in its time, and it's pretty easy to run a dinky little wire pair to a house (sometimes they'd literally use barbed wire fences). And labor costs were a lot lower when the phone network was built out. Electricity is genuinely hard and expensive, but we've accepted it as a basic need of modern life. Lighting, fridges, HV…

I know it's hard - but I was referring to companies taking tax dollars and not doing anything with it:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/att-took-283-mil...

>AT&T falsely told the US government that it met its obligation to deploy broadband at more than 133,000 locations in Mississippi, state officials say.

>Since 2015, AT&T has received over $283 million from the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund to expand its network in Mississippi. But the Mississippi Public Service Commission (PSC) said it has evidence that AT&T’s fixed-wireless broadband is not available to all the homes and businesses where AT&T claims it offers service. The PSC asked the FCC to conduct “a complete compliance audit” of AT&T’s claim that it has met its obligation

So it's that we cannot do it, it's that it's more profitable to say it's "difficult" to do it and then lie about getting it done.

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

#436

Post by insane_dreamer »

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…

Two important points you leave out:

1G is the max available in many large cities in the US, if that. I live in one and that's the best I can get (residential).

My "1G" (fiber) is definitely _not_ 1G most of the time, because it's shared (as the article points out).

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

#437

Post by seszett »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #406
seszett wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently net migration has been towards the EU rather than towards the USA since 2022, but I can't find a better source than this: https://x.com/benbawan/status/2049303326999609846

Your source literally has been community noted as misleading.

I had not seen it, but there isn't really an equivalent to a green card or permanent residency in most of Europe. Usually you just get naturalised after having spent 5 or 10 years with a limited-duration but more or less automatically renewable visa.

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

#438

Post by yogorenapan »

mrits wrote: post #246
yogorenapan wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Largest freight rail. Public transport for normal people is still shit compared to Europe.

Have you been to Europe? What area do you enjoy the public transportation?

Mate, I live in Europe. The UK (as bad as it is, is still better than the US), the Netherlands, Belgium, and generally anywhere else that has public transport.

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

#439

Post by yogorenapan »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #268
yogorenapan wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Largest freight rail. Public transport for normal people is still shit compared to Europe.

That doesn't seem to be stopping europeans from moving to USA.

I'm a European moving to America. Unfortunately money > public transport, and until Europe can compete on salaries and available capital, I'll have to make do with shittier transport

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

#440

Post by LocalH »

The answer is "America is capitalist-first more so than any other country". This is exactly why capitalism isn't the end-all be-all of isms.

I don't mind small capitalism. Open a business, give good service, you deserve to make a few million. But big capitalism? Take back some of the money they hoard for the purpose of the greater good.

As I'm getting older, I'm starting to think that the best possible government would be one that's partially capitalist and partially communist (but without the "state is the proxy" problem of all previous communist states, maybe that's a good use of blockchain)

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