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Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

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

#591

Post by Hikikomori »

martinald wrote: post #586
Hikikomori wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden doesn't use much PON either. If a countries fiber build out started before gpon was released or got popular you likely continue a lot with point to point. There's a small drawback, TDM/A for the uplink, introduces some jitter but guessing it's not as bad as cable.

Well a GPON frame is 0.125ms. So the best jitter is ~0.125ms, but even if the entire upstream segment was saturated you'd be looking at probably 1-2ms at absolute worse case. The OLT will not allow one user to hammer the upstream badly like you get with DOCSIS. So it's really a non issue (XGS-PON is even better as more data per frame means heavy upstream 'clears' the frames quicker), IME consumer routers add more jit…

Not great but much better than cable. I remember mmthe difference in smokeping as I switched from cable (very oversubscribed as well) to fiber.

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

#592

Post by hakfoo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #521
toofy wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i’m sorry, but no, starlink is not comparable to fiber. better than dsl? i mean, sure? but absolutely not even close to better than fiber. there’s a reason data centers in rural areas run fiber for miles and miles to their centers and aren’t on … starlink.

> starlink is not comparable to fiber Straw man. It doesn’t need to comparable. Just sufficient. If a rich rural community wants to pay to lay fiber into the boonies, they can still do that. But it shouldn’t be a shared cost across society. (I live in a rural community.)

What exactly made it possible to get copper wire into effectively every house in the country?

We didn't say "if a rich rural community wants telephones or electricity in the boonies..."

Maybe we need a new Ma Bell that's Uncle Fibre. Give them a very tightly bordered but lucrative monopoly in exchange for mandates to actually build and maintain the network. Perhaps some sort of scheme where consumers actually pay the regulator instead of the service provider, so they can hold payments hostage in the event expansion and QoS goals are not met, giving it real teeth.

It might end up being the same ~USD75-100 per month for 1Gb that many of us are paying for cable now, at least initially, but the cost would be funding making sure people in rural counties are getting modern infrastructure, and gradually ticking up speeds as more and more infra is paid down, rather than on yachts.

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

#593

Post by socalgal2 »

thelastgallon wrote: post #170

Most states in America ban municipal fiber. They saw EPB (Chattanooga) and said, no, we must make sure that doesn't ever happen again. That is how 'free' market is done in US, all the rules are to make sure the richest people become richer.

good cherry picking there

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

#594

Post by wisemanwillhear »

ttul wrote: post #9

In my small island community, I participated in a municipal committee whose mandate was to bring proper broadband to the island. Although two telecom duopolies already served the community, one of them had undersea fiber but zero fiber to the home (DSL remains the only option), whereas the other used a 670 Mbps wireless microwave link for backhaul and delivery via coaxial cable. And pricing? Insanely expensive for ei…

I think this demonstrates that while there are many factors at play, including difference in geography as many have pointed out, the main factor is priority. American's generally have different priorities, sometimes that just prioritizing our personal comfort by not having to fight against the current "system". So, even if we would love to have better internet, other things are more important. I'm one of those people. My cellular based rural internet would be considered poor by most people on Hacker News, but it's good enough for us. I have no motivation to pay for faster. I only rarely download large file and have always been willing to let them download in the background and come back hours later. If I'm going to campaign for something I currently have far bigger priorities.

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

#595

Post by axus »

toofy wrote: post #409
philipallstar wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: rural fibre is unbelievably expensive and starlink is solving it in a better way.

i’m sorry, but no, starlink is not comparable to fiber. better than dsl? i mean, sure? but absolutely not even close to better than fiber. there’s a reason data centers in rural areas run fiber for miles and miles to their centers and aren’t on … starlink.

My charitable interpretation: adding a turn-key competitor is a better way to incentive the incumbents than a long fight to add a government competitor.

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

#596

Post by shimman »

m_mueller wrote: post #391
jdeibele wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadbloc... It’s from 2023 but says 16 to 19 states.

this is insane. I guess it's that easy for telcos to lobby the legislators for keeping up their rents?

You're assuming they are giving these people hundreds of thousands of dollars, they aren't. These are mostly state politicians that make between $50k-80k who rarely get a campaign donation above $10k. These corporations absolutely give them the bare minimum (seriously talking between $500 to $4k maybe), it's only federal Senators that typically make the big bucks since they have the ability to single handedly gum up the system to prevent legislation.

But yeah, it's not only easy it's very cheap. This is why you need a workers party so workers can effectively collaborate together to either primary the politician or convince them otherwise.

Oh and you can't just do this once either, it takes an entire life's worth of work and it never ends.

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

#597

Post by sjm »

pb7 wrote: post #577
sjm wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guarantee you 99% of China landmass does not have 50G. Most of the country is ultra poor rice paddy farmers. Get real.

Fine, 99% of China "landmass" does not have 50G. 100% of the US does not have 10G. The fact that in NYC, the richest city in the history of cities, most buildings still only have access to cable from a single provider is absolutely ridiculous. Urban centers is what is worth comparison here, and the US falls massively behind.

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

#598

Post by mrguyorama »

throw0101d wrote: post #528
ascotan wrote: post #481

The 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.…

> The 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. The "US is large" argument is non-sense. 40% of the US population lives in a coastal county: * https://coast.noaa.gov/states/fast-facts/economics-and-d…

> the US managed to bring electrical cables to just about every household in the country

We had to pass acts of congress to pay for last mile electrical infrastructure for those who were truly out in the boonies and poor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act

We paid a shitload of money to various ISPs to do exactly the same thing for internet, multiple times, and then just let them.... not.

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

#599

Post by littlestymaar »

0x3f wrote: post #515
littlestymaar wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you get a technology that makes people acting perfectly rationally, with perfect information and getting marginal cost equal to average cost[1], free market is never gonna work. And until you get a technology that prevents leadership to be egoistic and corrupt, Communism is never going to work. I'm not holding my breath for any of those tech to happen. [1]: interestingly enough, such a condition is pretty much…

I'm not sure I really understand. What do you mean by "never gonna work"? Because markets obviously do largely work, despite the fact that people are not perfectly rational and there are other inefficiencies at the edges. They have their degenerate cases, of course, but I don't think anyone would say markets "don't work" in general. Most successful economies are largely market-based, as things stand today. Even the s…

With enough regulations, subsidies, strategic planning and government interventions when things turn bad, mixed economies do the job pretty well, that's right. And when the regulation is lacking the outcome is as well.

And even these economies are structured around monopolistic and oligopolistic actors.

They are as related to “free market” as northern European countries welfare state is related to Communism.

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

#600

Post by m_mueller »

shimman wrote: post #596
m_mueller wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is insane. I guess it's that easy for telcos to lobby the legislators for keeping up their rents?

You're assuming they are giving these people hundreds of thousands of dollars, they aren't. These are mostly state politicians that make between $50k-80k who rarely get a campaign donation above $10k. These corporations absolutely give them the bare minimum (seriously talking between $500 to $4k maybe), it's only federal Senators that typically make the big bucks since they have the ability to single handedly gum up…

I'd say first of all you need to put a lid on it, call this kind of thing again what it is (bribery), and make it illegal. Secondly, if someone wants a public office: pay them well (they'll still have the revolving door afterwards anyways), but all their finances will need to be published on a quarterly basis. It's not exactly rocket science, this kind of thing is implemented in many jurisdictions.
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