5 ms·

> A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden and ... New Jersey Except that Sweden is 20 times larger than New Jersey in area. The continental US is

by xigency 10y ago

> A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden and ... New Jersey Except that Sweden is 20 times larger than New Jersey in area. The continental US is 18 times larger than Sweden, so it is actually a better (if terrible) comparison geographically. Maybe in your argument you should compare Sweden with Michigan, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, or Minnesota instead of New Jersey, which each have at least half the area of Sweden with varying population density.

oblio 10y ago
Sweden is actually one of the best European examples since its population density and GDP are both lower than the US ones (yet still comparable).
- mrweasel 10y ago
  Sweden is also the country that people always pick, when they want to illustrate that Europe has better broadband, but as you say, it's one of the best examples. Take Denmark next to Sweden, while still better than the US, for the most part, the broadband roll out is much different. A single phone company (TDC/YouSee) owns the phone network, but they are force to lease their lines to competitors. TDC more or less dictate the price for renting, it just has to be "reasonable". The result is that a 20Mb DSL line cost the same from all providers. Cable companies have been force to open their networks this year, until then they had monopolies in individual areas. Fiber is being rolled out, but slowly and at great cost to the electric companies (that more or less own the fiber networks). This may sound great overall, but rural areas aren't getting nearly the level of connectivity that they would have gotten in Sweden. There are still plenty of place that are lucky to get 5Mbit, and Denmark is a very small country. I can't imagine the cost of rolling out just 10Mbit to 90% of the US customers.
rayiner 10y ago
I'm not sure you can just look at just total population and total land area. The pattern of development in Europe is very different. I just got back from Munich. You go 15 minutes outside the city and it's farmland! In the U.S., it's low-density suburbs for hours in every direction outside a major city. Incidentally, I didn't get LTE service in the farmland between Munich and the airport. That would be quite unusual in the U.S.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- tastythrowaway2 10y ago
  'That would be quite unusual in the U.S.' ...depending on your provider. try driving around in the sticks of Maryland just 20 minutes outside Baltimore, good luck getting EDGE on tmo!
  - jsight 10y ago
    And that is why I don't use tmo. :) I bet that your experience would be different with Verizon, AT&T, or maybe even Sprint.
    - tastythrowaway2 10y ago
      but that hardly makes it an unusual proposition - tmo is the 3rd largest network.
- Retric 10y ago
  Look at Google maps around say Blacksburg VA or Charleston WV. Which are both is city, city, city, forest. Which is fairly common across much of the US. The eastern seabord being basically one big city is very much an exception not the rule. The US has ~1/3 it's population in ~1/20th of it's land.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    The difference is that Blacksburg and Charleston have 50,000 people, while Munich has 1.5 million people.
    - Retric 10y ago
      Las Vegas has 600,000 people and the same thing. While less extreme, Chicago has over 2.5 million people and farmland is very close by.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
oldmanjay 10y ago
These arguments are now decades old and unresolvable since everyone is trying to extract a meaningful comparison from a single dimension of a complicated metric. I'm pretty over them. Can we call a halt?
- amazon_not 10y ago
  If you want to use a single metric, why not use people per mile of road? This correlates well with the only network metric that matters, linear route miles of cable per subscriber needed to provide service. Every (on-grid) dwelling and business is on a street or a road, so if you put a fiber cable on every road or street, then you will pass every inhabitant in the country. Sweden has 10 people per mile of road. The US has 30 people per mile of road. Sweden simply does better, despite having to deploy more infrastructure to provide service.
  - neuromancer2701 10y ago
    Isn't people/mile still incorrect because you basically have islands of large dense cities with roads between them that nobody lives on.
    - amazon2 10y ago
      People still live in the countryside. Rural areas aren't some uninhabited wilderness. If your aim is to provide broadband to all, you'll have to build there too. Sweden aims to do 100 Mbps to 90% of the population by 2020. Can't do that by just covering urban areas.
      - refurb 10y ago
        Rural areas aren't some uninhabited wilderness Try driving through Wyoming some time (on a highway!). You can easy drive for an hour or two and there is nothing but BLM (gov't) land all around you. No one lives there.
      - WillPostForFood 10y ago
maxerickson 10y ago
It can still be the case that Sweden is easier to serve than New Jersey, it depends on how the people are arranged within, not on the average density. As an absurd example, you can serve 40% of the population of Alaska by establishing service in Anchorage, which is roughly 0.1% of Alaska by area.
rbryan71 10y ago
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ratio+of+land+area+of+sweden+to+land+area+of+new+jersey https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ratio+of+land+area+of+...
- xigency 10y ago
  Ah yes, the land area would be a better comparison than total area. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ratio+of+land+area+of+continental+US+to+land+area+of+sweden https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ratio+of+land+area+of+...

by xigency 10y ago

oblio 10y ago

Sweden is actually one of the best European examples since its population density and GDP are both lower than the US ones (yet still comparable).

mrweasel 10y ago
Sweden is also the country that people always pick, when they want to illustrate that Europe has better broadband, but as you say, it's one of the best examples. Take Denmark next to Sweden, while still better than the US, for the most part, the broadband roll out is much different. A single phone company (TDC/YouSee) owns the phone network, but they are force to lease their lines to competitors. TDC more or less dictate the price for renting, it just has to be "reasonable". The result is that a 20Mb DSL line cost the same from all providers. Cable companies have been force to open their networks this year, until then they had monopolies in individual areas. Fiber is being rolled out, but slowly and at great cost to the electric companies (that more or less own the fiber networks). This may sound great overall, but rural areas aren't getting nearly the level of connectivity that they would have gotten in Sweden. There are still plenty of place that are lucky to get 5Mbit, and Denmark is a very small country. I can't imagine the cost of rolling out just 10Mbit to 90% of the US customers.

rayiner 10y ago

I'm not sure you can just look at just total population and total land area. The pattern of development in Europe is very different. I just got back from Munich. You go 15 minutes outside the city and it's farmland! In the U.S., it's low-density suburbs for hours in every direction outside a major city. Incidentally, I didn't get LTE service in the farmland between Munich and the airport. That would be quite unusual in the U.S.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tastythrowaway2 10y ago
'That would be quite unusual in the U.S.' ...depending on your provider. try driving around in the sticks of Maryland just 20 minutes outside Baltimore, good luck getting EDGE on tmo!
- jsight 10y ago
  And that is why I don't use tmo. :) I bet that your experience would be different with Verizon, AT&T, or maybe even Sprint.
  - tastythrowaway2 10y ago
    but that hardly makes it an unusual proposition - tmo is the 3rd largest network.
Retric 10y ago
Look at Google maps around say Blacksburg VA or Charleston WV. Which are both is city, city, city, forest. Which is fairly common across much of the US. The eastern seabord being basically one big city is very much an exception not the rule. The US has ~1/3 it's population in ~1/20th of it's land.
- rayiner 10y ago
  The difference is that Blacksburg and Charleston have 50,000 people, while Munich has 1.5 million people.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Las Vegas has 600,000 people and the same thing. While less extreme, Chicago has over 2.5 million people and farmland is very close by.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

oldmanjay 10y ago

These arguments are now decades old and unresolvable since everyone is trying to extract a meaningful comparison from a single dimension of a complicated metric. I'm pretty over them. Can we call a halt?

amazon_not 10y ago
If you want to use a single metric, why not use people per mile of road? This correlates well with the only network metric that matters, linear route miles of cable per subscriber needed to provide service. Every (on-grid) dwelling and business is on a street or a road, so if you put a fiber cable on every road or street, then you will pass every inhabitant in the country. Sweden has 10 people per mile of road. The US has 30 people per mile of road. Sweden simply does better, despite having to deploy more infrastructure to provide service.
- neuromancer2701 10y ago
  Isn't people/mile still incorrect because you basically have islands of large dense cities with roads between them that nobody lives on.
  - amazon2 10y ago
    People still live in the countryside. Rural areas aren't some uninhabited wilderness. If your aim is to provide broadband to all, you'll have to build there too. Sweden aims to do 100 Mbps to 90% of the population by 2020. Can't do that by just covering urban areas.
    - refurb 10y ago
      Rural areas aren't some uninhabited wilderness Try driving through Wyoming some time (on a highway!). You can easy drive for an hour or two and there is nothing but BLM (gov't) land all around you. No one lives there.
    - WillPostForFood 10y ago

maxerickson 10y ago

It can still be the case that Sweden is easier to serve than New Jersey, it depends on how the people are arranged within, not on the average density. As an absurd example, you can serve 40% of the population of Alaska by establishing service in Anchorage, which is roughly 0.1% of Alaska by area.

rbryan71 10y ago

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ratio+of+land+area+of+sweden+to+land+area+of+new+jersey https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ratio+of+land+area+of+...

xigency 10y ago
Ah yes, the land area would be a better comparison than total area. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ratio+of+land+area+of+continental+US+to+land+area+of+sweden https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ratio+of+land+area+of+...