Uh, maybe because Switzerland is the size of a Poptart?
Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
551–560 of 726 posts
Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
#552Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That is how 'free' market is done in US, all the rules are to make sure the richest people become richer. In all fairness, we put an awful lot of effort into making the poor poorer as well.
This statement is easily refuted by looking up statistics on poverty.
Except the definitions of poverty are defined to make it seems like it's not poverty. When you have a massive amount of the population that lives paycheck to paycheck, is one small medical emergency away from bankruptcy / can't pay their rent/mortgage. Will lose their job because of little to no protections. Very little social safety nets... most people are a lot closer to 'poverty' than looking at simple statistics.
Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
#553The geographic and demographic orders of magnitude when comparing these two places makes it difficult to extrapolate applicability of best practices. Who's to say the Swiss model scales? Article doesn't convincingly address this. For context: 41 US States are geographically larger than Switzerland. It's most comparable state in area is West Virginia. West Virginia is .064% of the national area. Some fun distance cont…
Sure, and we basically force users to choose one or two providers. Some of these are compelled to serve rural customers as well.
I live in the SF Bay Area, and have Sonic internet. 10gbe for 60 bucks a month.
I ended up building my own router/firewall because it was cheaper than anything off the shelf that could deal with that sort of speed.
It is entirely possible to have these sorts of services in the states, when competition is allowed.
Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
#554Earlier quoted context omitted.
oooooo how did I miss this before
Probably just because there are so many ISPs in the USA that keeping track of all of them is impossible. I only know about it because I’m a customer (but not sadly of their 50Gbps service; maybe one day).
I actually meant their multi gig service in general/this page - I know ziply quite well!
The 10G seems like a price/sanity sweet spot, 50G is really massive overkill, as tempting as it would be…
Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A lot of places in America had their “network” infra built 50-100 years ago on copper That's no different to Switzerland so far… > and no one wants to pay to basically rebuild all of it. …but the Swiss seem to have decided it's worth the investment. > I happen to live in an area where there are still above ground utilities. If anything, that can make things cheaper. You don't need to bury everything, and in some pl…
> …but the Swiss seem to have decided it's worth the investment. West Virginia is 1.5x the size of the entire country of Switzerland. Let that sink in. Texas is 16x times bigger. The idea that it should be doable in a country that is 100x bigger, with 50 separate states, god knows how many individual counties because it could be done in vastly smaller one is where your problem is.
I'm sorry, but your stance is completely fing ridiculous. First of all, nobody is saying you need to do the entire US in one go by one approach and one provider. Second, the US has about 30× the GDP of Switzerland. Third, have you looked at Swiss geography? They're pulling fiber up the alps to the damn huts. Fourth, they're burying pretty much everything, as I said you don't really have to do that. Fifth, 26 cantons can squabble almost as well as 50 states can. Sixth, you're somehow assuming Switzerland is the only country successfully doing this. Sure, not everyone is doing it to that level, but take a look at Brazil.
If you're looking for reasons to fail, you will fail. The only thing your argument really excuses is that it will take longer. But the US doesn't have the political will to even start.
(Same for Germany, to some degree, btw.)
Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
#556The real reason for the “cartels” in the US is because of the cost of infrastructure versus the subscribers cost. Because the United States is so large there are only a few companies that can create the infrastructure required to service large area areas with fiber. So companies that have the ability to lay down, fiber do so in necessary cooperation with other providers to create a large patchwork across the country.…
> It’s not realistic or feasible to have the US government generate a fiber optic connectivity for the entirety of every household in the United States. In fact, the free market was the only realistic possible to deliver this.
They managed for water and wastewater, which are a lot more complex than fiber.
Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
#557Earlier quoted context omitted.
It absolutely does happen that way in Germany. We had Fiber Company A rip up the entire city a year ago, and Fiber Company B ripped up the streets again just a few weeks ago. ETA from my ISP to actually get any of those lines into my apartment is still 2028.
This is a coördination problem: the municipality can mandate that every company has to install a larger conduit so that (say) 3-6 (?) other fibres can be run. So if one company is doing the east part of the town, and another company is doing the west, at some point they could leverage the infrastructure of each other.
> […] the municipality can mandate […]
I don't think so. German open access law says if you're in a "market dominating" position, you have to share access to what you have. I'm at least unaware of a law that allows forcing telcos to build more than they want. (And even if there were, it'd be balanced by them deciding to just not build at all.)
Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
#558Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure that isn't wifi interference?
Most places in Asia, this is due to massive oversubscription. No relation at all to wireless spectrum.
That's easy to claim, but there are a lot of places where everyone is surrounded by everyone else's wifi routers. If you have 9 routers that you share walls with and even more that can reach you, wifi starts to break down, but people will blame their service provider.
Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
#559Earlier quoted context omitted.
So one would think. And yet, living in Switzerland after the UK involved one after another discovery of how well-ordered and -run a country could be. And then moving to Germany was like stepping back even further behind my memories of the UK. I'm sure you could find examples of countries that do specific things as well as Switzerland; but I'm not aware of many places that do almost everything so excellently. (Maybe J…
I don't doubt there are differences. I doubt they're insurmountable. Again, because the Swiss aren't some genetically superior subspecies. Culture can be changed. I see Americans talk about how impossible universal healthcare is as if the rest of the developed world hasn't largely figured it out.
The healthcare system is actually one of the few things Switzerland isn't doing that well. It's somewhat "americanized", lots of "extra" insurances for random areas that will only accept you if you're healthy. Base insurance is regulated, has to accept all customers, and you're required to (pay for and) have it.
The FR and UK systems are better IMHO.
Just to be clear, the Swiss healthcare system is still very good. Just not perfect.
Re: Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
#560The geographic and demographic orders of magnitude when comparing these two places makes it difficult to extrapolate applicability of best practices. Who's to say the Swiss model scales? Article doesn't convincingly address this. For context: 41 US States are geographically larger than Switzerland. It's most comparable state in area is West Virginia. West Virginia is .064% of the national area. Some fun distance cont…
This is the same American-branded copium we see during discussions of socialized healthcare, which every other first-world country on the planet seems to manage. China has 10G and 50G home fiber. Zurich is larger geographically than Manhattan, while having much lower population density.