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Norway and Sweden have excellent Fiber-to-the-Home and very low population density. You can get 1GBit/s symmetrical quite cheaply (I don't remember how much, on

Norway and Sweden have excellent Fiber-to-the-Home and very low population density. You can get 1GBit/s symmetrical quite cheaply (I don't remember how much, one Swedish offer I found just now is $120/month).

scott_s 11y ago
Area of Norway: 148,718 mi² Area of Sweden: 173,732 mi² Area of USA: 3.806 million mi² Even if the densities are similar, infrastructure is harder at scale. It's also true that the places in the US with less density tend to have less economic engines.
- lorenzhs 11y ago
  Population density of Norway: 14 people per km². Population density of the USA: 35 people per km². Sure it's hard to do this at scale, but nobody is asking for it to be deployed everywhere at the same time. You could start in populous areas, where it would be cheap to do so, and gradually supply less populated areas.
  - douche 11y ago
    That's sort of the way it already works... It's never going to make economic sense to put gigabit fiber out to rural areas, unless it is heavily subsidized. If there were some business location that required high speed, people lucky enough to live along the trunk line to that location might get service - that's the only reason I had cable TV as a child.
dangerlibrary 11y ago
1. I suspect that offer isn't available in northern Norway. 2. They are only a couple hundred miles from the big internet exchanges in the Netherlands and Germany. Most of those miles can be covered with undersea cables, so you don't need to dig, which is expensive. 3. The U.S. regulatory environment for internet providers is horrible and everyone knows it.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  See [1], which is a request to tender: "Tromsø Municipality will contribute to the initiation of construction of a powerful and progressive fibre-based broadband network in the outskirts of the municipality of Tromsø". I assume that means the town itself already has it. Or [2], a press statement from Luleå's largest fibre broadband provider, back in 2012. Both places are in the Arctic, Tromsø is 3000km from Amsterdam. NYC to London is only 5,500km... [1] http://www.publictenders.net/node/1956874 http://www.publictenders.net/node/1956874 [2] https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2012/10/25/lunet-offers-its-fibre-customers-com-hem-tv-packages-in-lulea/ https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/...
- lorenzhs 11y ago
  1. Many regional providers exist all over the country that provide similar services in fairly remote towns. 2. Symbiote addressed this quite well. They're really not that close to the big exchanges. 3. That's not a technical problem though, and could be changed if there was a will to. Which is exactly what this discussion is about—in Scandinavia (in fact, most of Europe), there is competition and the broadband situation is fairly good. Heck, I pay less than $50/month for 200/10 MBit/s and cable TV in Germany. There's no technical reason this wouldn't work in metropolitan areas in the US.
rhino369 11y ago
Why does Akami only report ~1/3rd of Sweden and Norway having above 15 Mbps? https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q2-state-of-the-internet-report.pdf https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q2-st... I've never been anywhere either country, but I suspect this uberInternet Meme about Scandinavia is not quite representative of average Scandinavian ISP speed.
- lorenzhs 11y ago
  Sweden is globally ranked 4th in that report, and Norway 7th. Just because GBit fiber is availabe to many doesn't mean that everybody wants to have (or pay for) it.

scott_s 11y ago

Area of Norway: 148,718 mi² Area of Sweden: 173,732 mi² Area of USA: 3.806 million mi² Even if the densities are similar, infrastructure is harder at scale. It's also true that the places in the US with less density tend to have less economic engines.

lorenzhs 11y ago
Population density of Norway: 14 people per km². Population density of the USA: 35 people per km². Sure it's hard to do this at scale, but nobody is asking for it to be deployed everywhere at the same time. You could start in populous areas, where it would be cheap to do so, and gradually supply less populated areas.
- douche 11y ago
  That's sort of the way it already works... It's never going to make economic sense to put gigabit fiber out to rural areas, unless it is heavily subsidized. If there were some business location that required high speed, people lucky enough to live along the trunk line to that location might get service - that's the only reason I had cable TV as a child.

dangerlibrary 11y ago

1. I suspect that offer isn't available in northern Norway. 2. They are only a couple hundred miles from the big internet exchanges in the Netherlands and Germany. Most of those miles can be covered with undersea cables, so you don't need to dig, which is expensive. 3. The U.S. regulatory environment for internet providers is horrible and everyone knows it.

Symbiote 11y ago
See [1], which is a request to tender: "Tromsø Municipality will contribute to the initiation of construction of a powerful and progressive fibre-based broadband network in the outskirts of the municipality of Tromsø". I assume that means the town itself already has it. Or [2], a press statement from Luleå's largest fibre broadband provider, back in 2012. Both places are in the Arctic, Tromsø is 3000km from Amsterdam. NYC to London is only 5,500km... [1] http://www.publictenders.net/node/1956874 http://www.publictenders.net/node/1956874 [2] https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2012/10/25/lunet-offers-its-fibre-customers-com-hem-tv-packages-in-lulea/ https://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/...
lorenzhs 11y ago
1. Many regional providers exist all over the country that provide similar services in fairly remote towns. 2. Symbiote addressed this quite well. They're really not that close to the big exchanges. 3. That's not a technical problem though, and could be changed if there was a will to. Which is exactly what this discussion is about—in Scandinavia (in fact, most of Europe), there is competition and the broadband situation is fairly good. Heck, I pay less than $50/month for 200/10 MBit/s and cable TV in Germany. There's no technical reason this wouldn't work in metropolitan areas in the US.

rhino369 11y ago

Why does Akami only report ~1/3rd of Sweden and Norway having above 15 Mbps? https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q2-state-of-the-internet-report.pdf https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q2-st... I've never been anywhere either country, but I suspect this uberInternet Meme about Scandinavia is not quite representative of average Scandinavian ISP speed.

lorenzhs 11y ago
Sweden is globally ranked 4th in that report, and Norway 7th. Just because GBit fiber is availabe to many doesn't mean that everybody wants to have (or pay for) it.