5 ms·

Anecdotal evidence. I live in Stockholm. I talk at a conference about once/month, nearly always outside Sweden. Nearly every industrial conference has problems

Anecdotal evidence. I live in Stockholm. I talk at a conference about once/month, nearly always outside Sweden. Nearly every industrial conference has problems with wifi. Never in Sweden. Anywhere do we have problems at hotels, venues, massive conferences. We have the bandwidth. Most other countries do not, and leaving Sweden is always like going back in time, tbh. Everybody i know has fibre to the home, irrespective if they live in an appartment or suburban house. The suburban house people complain that it costs them 1-2k Euro to pay for the fibre, but they pay for it. The people who don't have fibre to the home are mostly old people (lots of them!) and farmers (and lots of them have it anyways).

wahsd 10y ago
What you don't understand is that you are experiencing a kind of confirmation bias. Although you are partially correct and Sweden does have a great network, there is significant weight behind the argument that the small scale networking of a few population dense centers in Sweden is nothing on the scale of something like rolling out a comparable network in the USA. It's such a different level of scale that totally different forces are at play and factors that are not even measurable or noticeable on the Swedish scale are amplified to the point where they have fundamental impacts. I do agree though that in America, the main problem is public policy on the Federal level that essentially prohibits competition or even just consequences. We will see in a couple of days how the election goes, which will also determine whether the centralization of power and corruption at the Federal level expands though Hillary Clinton, or if market forces with compulsion to become the best and improve everything will drive Donald Trump to enact market competition and bust the de facto monopoly on internet the cable companies have a death grip on.
gopalv 10y ago
> The suburban house people complain that it costs them 1-2k Euro to pay for the fibre, but they pay for it. I think that's the difference - the costs are upfront, not paid by capital/loan with the subscriber having to pay for it eventually. Rationally, most people wouldn't want to pay that much into a US cable/net provider, considering their historical experience with them.
- ajford 10y ago
  I would totally pay 1-2k upfront (assuming I owned the home or was planing to stay at least 5 years) if I "owned" the fiber and could choose my own ISP. At that level of competition, it could easily drive the prices down into the $10-20 range for high bandwidth, which would probably break even with current cable internet prices now. I pay nearly $100/mo for 300Mbps/20Mbps since I have about 9 active users in my home. I pay about $1.2k per year in internet, so $1-2k upfront for cheaper monthly pricing and more competitive features.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Most of the monthly fee you pay does not go into paying off the initial investment. For example, Verizon wireline's EBITDA margin is 25%. So out of your $100 bill, $75 goes to maintenance, customer service, etc. and $25 is left before paying interest in debt used to build the network, paying taxes, or accounting for the depreciating value of equipment marching toward obsolescence.
  - z3t4 10y ago
    The carrier owns the fiber, but you still have to pay $2500 upfront plus a $100-500 monthly fee. Most of the time you can choose the ISP though. If you live in a co-operative you can own the fiber yourself and buy transit. Then there's the municipal fiber carriers that will own the fiber, but you only pay the prime cost resulting in lower upfront and monthly fees, and if you live on the countryside you can get a government grant, install the fiber yourself, then sell it for 1$ to one of the carriers usually resulting in low monthly fee.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      Is this in Sweden? In the U.S., if a carrier wants to build fiber in a town or suburb, they have to build all the fiber first, then hope people sign up for $70-$100 per month with no money paid up front. What you describe sounds like a great model. It'd be very difficult to do it in the U.S.
      - 10y ago

wahsd 10y ago

What you don't understand is that you are experiencing a kind of confirmation bias. Although you are partially correct and Sweden does have a great network, there is significant weight behind the argument that the small scale networking of a few population dense centers in Sweden is nothing on the scale of something like rolling out a comparable network in the USA. It's such a different level of scale that totally different forces are at play and factors that are not even measurable or noticeable on the Swedish scale are amplified to the point where they have fundamental impacts. I do agree though that in America, the main problem is public policy on the Federal level that essentially prohibits competition or even just consequences. We will see in a couple of days how the election goes, which will also determine whether the centralization of power and corruption at the Federal level expands though Hillary Clinton, or if market forces with compulsion to become the best and improve everything will drive Donald Trump to enact market competition and bust the de facto monopoly on internet the cable companies have a death grip on.

gopalv 10y ago

> The suburban house people complain that it costs them 1-2k Euro to pay for the fibre, but they pay for it. I think that's the difference - the costs are upfront, not paid by capital/loan with the subscriber having to pay for it eventually. Rationally, most people wouldn't want to pay that much into a US cable/net provider, considering their historical experience with them.

ajford 10y ago
I would totally pay 1-2k upfront (assuming I owned the home or was planing to stay at least 5 years) if I "owned" the fiber and could choose my own ISP. At that level of competition, it could easily drive the prices down into the $10-20 range for high bandwidth, which would probably break even with current cable internet prices now. I pay nearly $100/mo for 300Mbps/20Mbps since I have about 9 active users in my home. I pay about $1.2k per year in internet, so $1-2k upfront for cheaper monthly pricing and more competitive features.
- rayiner 10y ago
  Most of the monthly fee you pay does not go into paying off the initial investment. For example, Verizon wireline's EBITDA margin is 25%. So out of your $100 bill, $75 goes to maintenance, customer service, etc. and $25 is left before paying interest in debt used to build the network, paying taxes, or accounting for the depreciating value of equipment marching toward obsolescence.
- z3t4 10y ago
  The carrier owns the fiber, but you still have to pay $2500 upfront plus a $100-500 monthly fee. Most of the time you can choose the ISP though. If you live in a co-operative you can own the fiber yourself and buy transit. Then there's the municipal fiber carriers that will own the fiber, but you only pay the prime cost resulting in lower upfront and monthly fees, and if you live on the countryside you can get a government grant, install the fiber yourself, then sell it for 1$ to one of the carriers usually resulting in low monthly fee.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Is this in Sweden? In the U.S., if a carrier wants to build fiber in a town or suburb, they have to build all the fiber first, then hope people sign up for $70-$100 per month with no money paid up front. What you describe sounds like a great model. It'd be very difficult to do it in the U.S.
    - 10y ago