4 ms·

>Back then 34 Mbit/s was something fantastic! I can't even get 34 Mbps now. This was 20 years ago?

johansch 11y ago
Well, it was shared by like 20k (occasional) users and 1-2k students with campus Ethernet network connections. (Still, it never really got saturated. There wasn't that many interesting AND bandwidth-consuming services out there in the rest of the world.) I think Sweden was quite good at getting people connected at decent speeds. In retrospect, I think this was a very wise way to spend tax money. My personal Internet-connection history goes like this: 1994: 28.8 kbps modem at home in a small village. It cost like $2/hour. 1996: 10 Mbit/s - residential student university network, for like $10/month 2000: 10 Mbit/s - moved away from the student area to an apartment with a commercial connection (Bredbandsbolaget - they got loads of investements, some of it in the form of hardware from Cisco). $30/month 2002: Upgraded to 100 Mbit/s. $30/month 2009: My homeowner association accepts a 10 year deal where all apartments get 100 Mbit/s Ethernet-based access for $10/month (in exchange for "monopoly" - everyone needs to pay $10). (Since 1996, it's been all direct Ethernet, no silly old stuff like DSL or cable.)
- keithpeter 11y ago
  UK: I'm on adsl over copper (actually solid aluminium) wire from a phone exchange 6km away. No plans for fibre upgrade. 2.4Mbit/s down and something like 0.8Mbit/s up costing £12 per month to the ISP and around £65 per quarter to the national phone company for landline service. All this and I'm about 2km from the centre of a major city.
- dalke 11y ago
  "There wasn't that many interesting AND bandwidth-consuming services out there in the rest of the world." MIT had a video capture system. If you told it your IP address, and did the xhost + correctly (we were so trusting back then), it would pop up an X window on your machine and show video. We watched part of the 1994 World Cup that way, at a few frames per second and 1/3rd of a continent away. And no sound. Regarding network in Sweden, part of me drools over the $100/month 1Gbit/s offerings from Com Hem and Bredbandbolaget. The bigger part of me wonders if the extra bandwidth would be worthwhile.
mstade 11y ago
Welcome to Sweden! I signed up for 100/10 mbps when I moved in to my (then newly built) apartment in Stockholm, in 2006. Recently (last year I think) my provider was installing some new equipment, and when noticing the plan I was on asked if I wanted to upgrade to 200/100 mbps at the same cost. Said and done. The idea of city wide LANs started taking off in the late 90s and early 00s, and many (most?) new buildings from the mid 00s onward have fiber optics wired throughout for the day they do get connected. This was the case for my building, but it is by no means unique. Many older apartment buildings and single family residences also get retrofitted to take advantage; an operation which these days is usually pretty cheap all things considered. Even smaller cities often invest in such infrastructure. For example, in the small city of Strömstad (population ca 12000) you can connect to the local fiber network from nearly every home. The explicit goal is to get everyone connected. Sweden has great IT infrastructure, a testament to forward thinking in the 90s. (Probably fueled by lobbying from technology companies like Ericsson.)
- johansch 11y ago
  Just before the 2001/2002 crash, there was a huge wave of IP network investments in Sweden. A lot of it came from America - US pension funds investing in Cisco and Bredbandsbolaget, in turn investing in Swedish networking infrastructure. In the 30-apartment house where I've lived since year 2000, there's a monster Cisco router delivered in year 2000. I think the street value then was around $1-2M. Thank you america :).
  - HillRat 11y ago
    You're welcome. Any chance you could send it back?

Well, it was shared by like 20k (occasional) users and 1-2k students with campus Ethernet network connections. (Still, it never really got saturated. There wasn't that many interesting AND bandwidth-consuming services out there in the rest of the world.) I think Sweden was quite good at getting people connected at decent speeds. In retrospect, I think this was a very wise way to spend tax money. My personal Internet-connection history goes like this: 1994: 28.8 kbps modem at home in a small village. It cost like $2/hour. 1996: 10 Mbit/s - residential student university network, for like $10/month 2000: 10 Mbit/s - moved away from the student area to an apartment with a commercial connection (Bredbandsbolaget - they got loads of investements, some of it in the form of hardware from Cisco). $30/month 2002: Upgraded to 100 Mbit/s. $30/month 2009: My homeowner association accepts a 10 year deal where all apartments get 100 Mbit/s Ethernet-based access for $10/month (in exchange for "monopoly" - everyone needs to pay $10). (Since 1996, it's been all direct Ethernet, no silly old stuff like DSL or cable.)

keithpeter 11y ago
UK: I'm on adsl over copper (actually solid aluminium) wire from a phone exchange 6km away. No plans for fibre upgrade. 2.4Mbit/s down and something like 0.8Mbit/s up costing £12 per month to the ISP and around £65 per quarter to the national phone company for landline service. All this and I'm about 2km from the centre of a major city.
dalke 11y ago
"There wasn't that many interesting AND bandwidth-consuming services out there in the rest of the world." MIT had a video capture system. If you told it your IP address, and did the xhost + correctly (we were so trusting back then), it would pop up an X window on your machine and show video. We watched part of the 1994 World Cup that way, at a few frames per second and 1/3rd of a continent away. And no sound. Regarding network in Sweden, part of me drools over the $100/month 1Gbit/s offerings from Com Hem and Bredbandbolaget. The bigger part of me wonders if the extra bandwidth would be worthwhile.

mstade 11y ago

Welcome to Sweden! I signed up for 100/10 mbps when I moved in to my (then newly built) apartment in Stockholm, in 2006. Recently (last year I think) my provider was installing some new equipment, and when noticing the plan I was on asked if I wanted to upgrade to 200/100 mbps at the same cost. Said and done. The idea of city wide LANs started taking off in the late 90s and early 00s, and many (most?) new buildings from the mid 00s onward have fiber optics wired throughout for the day they do get connected. This was the case for my building, but it is by no means unique. Many older apartment buildings and single family residences also get retrofitted to take advantage; an operation which these days is usually pretty cheap all things considered. Even smaller cities often invest in such infrastructure. For example, in the small city of Strömstad (population ca 12000) you can connect to the local fiber network from nearly every home. The explicit goal is to get everyone connected. Sweden has great IT infrastructure, a testament to forward thinking in the 90s. (Probably fueled by lobbying from technology companies like Ericsson.)

johansch 11y ago
Just before the 2001/2002 crash, there was a huge wave of IP network investments in Sweden. A lot of it came from America - US pension funds investing in Cisco and Bredbandsbolaget, in turn investing in Swedish networking infrastructure. In the 30-apartment house where I've lived since year 2000, there's a monster Cisco router delivered in year 2000. I think the street value then was around $1-2M. Thank you america :).
- HillRat 11y ago
  You're welcome. Any chance you could send it back?