If the internet had been around back when the U.S. Constitution was written, instead of post offices, the framers would have put in ISPs.
Here in Sweden I have over 20 choices of providers, many with specific a focus. One that is superb, which is the one I have, don’t do any tracking or information gathering at all. They are fully focused on privacy, an open Internet and have helped countries in need, like Ukraine, with hardware to keep Internet access on. They’ve been raided and taken to court over not following the required IP address storage laws and some other things of deliberately not collecting information. Their newsletter is so good too, all about privacy and relevant tech news. Seriously couldn’t dream of a better ISP.
ITT: Europeans don’t understand population density and actually believe they have villages that can be described as “remote”.
“In the US, 100 years is a long time. In the EU, 100 miles is a long distance.”
Old joke, but it really does highlight the largest fundamental cultural difference. Things like trying to explain how grudges that were formed in the 19th century and are indeed still the driving force behind political trends, or how accusing me of political indifference because I’m not in DC protesting is like accusing someone in portugal of not caring about world politics because they didn’t drive to eastern Ukraine for a protest…
OK, now explain why you can’t find a decent ISP in a major American city. (That’s right, it’s because of monopolies and enshittification.)
That seems like a large generalization - my friends apt. in a major city has 100 gbps, my house in bumfuck has 1 gig fiber, my neighbor has 5mbps DSL. It’s pretty variable and enshittificiation is for sure an issue, but you can still absolutely find good ISPs in major american cities. It’s not that dire.
I’m out in the country in Colorado. I have a small local ISP. I can get 10Gb if I want it. I have 100Mb because that’s all I need. Honestly, for most people, I really don’t know what you’d do with 25Gb. Even 10Gb is tough for alot of home users. The equipment is out there and not even that expensive, but its also not something most people own. Most people who own that sort of stuff are either home labbers or tech enthusiasts. And even if most people did, they would rarely use it to its full potential. For most people 2.5Gb is far more practical. Oddly enough it can be harder and more expensive to get your hands on than 10Gb because it’s just starting to really penetrate the consumer market, where 10Gb was common in datacenters for a long time, so used equipment is quite reasonable.
The biggest issue with ISPs in the US is that you have legacy players entrenched in a market and unwilling to spend the money to do upgrades. The main reason I have what I have is because a local company saw an opportunity to go into a space others were failing badly at and used a state grant to help fund the buildout. Soon, I may have a second option because my electric co-op is working on their own build. Since they answer to their members and not the stock market, now that fiber is cheap, they can build this stuff widely. We need more of all that.
Man, all I want is square speeds. I’d be happier with 100Mbps square than I am with my current 400/40Mbps down/up, even if it was the same price. I’m a video creator and self-hoster, 40Mbps up is not enough.
I live in a big city in the US and the best internet option I have is 1Gb through Verizon, and my apartment complex is making a deal with Comcast so that’s going to go away leaving only 100Mb. I have a homelab setup which is why I was willing to pay more for the 1Gb.
I’m in the US and we have 25 gig fiber
Doubt. Also how much are you paying for it?
Only available in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
In Spain most villages have some tiny local ISP that offers fiber. My town (population 30k) has two local ISPs. I can get 10Gbit for 30 euros/month. Even remote villages have fiber.
And then there’s germany: I pay 43 Euros a month for only 100 MBit/s via cable. Nice to see how fckn far behind we are lol.
Pro tip: move to Schleswig-Holstein, where every village has fiber lol. 86% availability vs the german average of 12%
25 Gbit Internet
Sounds like they overspent massively on infrastructure. This is a waste of taxpayer money. You have to run some top tier industrial service from your home to utilize even 10% of that. There’s literally no use case for avg Joe.
Here’s how this works in poland: Infrastructure is private, but law mandates that telecoms share with each other. The result is extremely competitive industry that delivers cheap internet over entire state. I’m running 600Mb down/30Mb up at equivalent of $20 a month, 23% VAT included.
It’s possible to get 1Gb+ but at that point most common networking hardware and cables are becoming bottleneck.
I know literally noone who needs more than 1Gb symmetric connection.
Market delivers what’s mostly in demand, and it isn’t 25Gb That needs extreme infrastructure on both sides, provider and user
Yeah, I have 1Gb fiber but all of my equipment is old and none of it can even utilize the entire Gb. I only keep it because I got a deal on it when they first ran fiber, had issues with someone severing the fiber to my house (like 12 times when “gardening”), and now I’m grandfathered-in to a cheaper price… so I keep it for whenever I do upgrade something. Which should be soon, if I ever get back to setting up my home server
I can’t imagine when privatised infrastructure is ever a good idea?
It’s not necessarily a waste of tax payer money for a country as small as Switzerland. Switzerland is about twice as large as New Jersey, the 4th smallest US state. It makes sense for them to provide high bandwidth to everyone since their banks and data centers are in the same physical area as their living districts.
I think the size thing is the answer to the question. I’m from Jersey so I googled and yeah, two NJ is one Switzerland, so perhaps that’s why America does not have ubiquitous 25Gbit internet, because it is 237 times larger.
And piggybacking of precious comments, completely unnecessary amount of bandwidth. I am fortune, being from Jersey, that as my needs have grown, the service I get has seemingly grown to accommodate my use. I remember using cable back when it came out, and it would bog down hard between 5-7pm, when people got home and used surfed the information highway. Now, I have 300/300 I think, I pay $24.99 a month, I do stuff that utilizes bandwidth, and I never, ever have any issues. I know this isn’t everyone’s experience, but it certainly exists for plenty of folks. Ubiquitous distribution is probably unlikely, especially considering how much of middle America lives (and I mean rural, not like animals).
I would be happy to have any fiber at all. The only options here are satellite and DSL. The DSL is basically unusable and only available to existing customers. I’m pretty sure the ISP wants to make everyone cancel so they don’t have to maintain the copper lines anymore.
They do. Copper lines are all converted to digital and fiber upstream, but the government says they have to maintain the copper for now because some people still rely on it.
Because it’s more profitable to charge people without upgrading the infrastructure. That’s how privatized systems work. It used to be about building a better product to attract consumers, now it’s about squeezing consumers for the most profit and minimizing costs.
the photorealistic AI image model that they use looks scarily realistic
Very good. My TL;DR take:
The American and German approach of letting incumbents build monopolies, allowing wasteful overbuild, and refusing to regulate natural monopolies is often called a ‘free market.’
But it’s not free. And it’s not a market.
True capitalism requires competition. But infrastructure is a natural monopoly. If you treat it like a regular consumer product, you don’t get competition. You get waste, or you get a monopoly.
The Swiss model understands this. They built the infrastructure once, as a shared, neutral asset, and then let the market compete on the services that run over it.
That’s not anti-capitalist. It’s actually better capitalism. It directs competition to where it adds value, not to where it destroys it.
The free market doesn’t mean letting powerful incumbents do whatever they want. It means creating the conditions where genuine competition can thrive.
Some right libertarians actually believe the bullshit that free markets magically pop up out of the ground like weeds if you just don’t regulate anything. This is obviously untrue. You need the right type of regulation to have a free market. Otherwise you end up with cartels and monopolies.
Those that operate the cartels and monopolies know this, but continue to feed the propaganda machine that spouts the opposite.
Libertarian police
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
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Not that I am one, but I believe true libertarians should be rabidly pro anti-trust legislation, letting corporations fail, and a 100% inheritance tax above a threshold.
True libertarians are. Companies shouldn’t get tax payer bailouts.
What a terrific summary. Thank you
Well you just have to make everyone rich first! Then when everyone’s rich they can solve the problem all by themselves! (Jordan Peterson’s argument for climate change.)
because America keeps giving money to broadband companies, who promise to improve internet speeds and access… give the money to executives as bonuses, do shit all with speeds or access, and their reward is another dumptruck of money to expand access and speeds… Which they 20 return to 10 and give it all out as executive bonuses again and do fuck all for the customer/citizens
oh, and when municipalities try to run their own broadband, they force them to shut down because its not fair for them to compete with the monopolistic internet companies. 🙄
I wish this was just in the USA but numerous countries in the EU handed out billions upon billions to private companies to roll out VDSL and then fibre connections (GPON) and the public owns none of what has been made despite paying for it all and the bonuses on top. Now the higher speeds are grossly more expensive than the old DSL lines used to be and they are turning those all off and getting to pocket the increased prices.
corporatism is a plague all over the world.
Western & south Europe (not exactly all countries) has fibre in like remote villages.
My inlaws live in a small village (pop. 60) just outside of a small town (pop. 2793) in central Portugal, and have a good fiber connection.
And ever since DIGI came into the portuguese market last year, I have had a 1 gigabit fiber connection at home and 2 cellphones with unlimited data plans for €20/month. And it’s going down to €19 this month :)
Yay for fibre!
I can hardly imagine the last few decades without it.
Reading horror stories on the internet about downloading games for a day feels like reading about a starving village without roads.
Same with GSM data (we had GPRS, UMTS, etc about when they came out). Or the price of an SMS in late 90s/early 2000. Imagine not having unlimited SMS as a teen.
It’s wild that rich, developed countries lacked basic infrastructure, and then they overpaid sooo much for it.
Because America is a Banana Republic with nukes and wall street.
This isn’t particularly unique. India, Pakistan, France, UK, Israel and Russia would match that description. Many of the listed countries are better at doing internet than the states.
And fweedum!
fweedumb*
