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I think the speed element is too narrow. The bandwidth caps you see in the US are very very rare in the rest of the developed world. It's also extremely expensi

I think the speed element is too narrow. The bandwidth caps you see in the US are very very rare in the rest of the developed world. It's also extremely expensive compared to more competitive markets and it's almost all down to regulatory capture.

tptacek 9y ago
What city in Germany could I compare to Chicago to find rates that were significantly cheaper in Europe? From what I've seen in a few minutes of clicking, they seem broadly comparable.
- martinald 9y ago
  I know the UK market best, but you can get uncapped 38meg VDSL for £25/month Inc tax - about $30/month. Virgin Media is £45 for 100mbit DOCSIS. I have hyperoptic in my apartment, which is about £55/month for uncapped 1gig up/down. Keep in mind European prices include all taxes in their prices.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    I could be wrong --- I'm not looking very hard --- but that DOCSIS rate looks higher than the Xfinity equivalent in Chicago.
    - martinald 9y ago
      Including tax and fees with no caps?
      - tptacek 9y ago
        So, I don't know, but if we're down to quibbling amount the amount of money taxes represent, I think the argument that Europe has drastically better Internet access than the US is over, isn't it?
        ploxiln 9y ago
        The caps make a huge, huge difference. That's why mobile LTE plans are sold almost completely in terms of the cap. Consider a 100 mbps cable connection with a classic comcast 250 GiB cap. Now obviously home internet is designed and sold to be bursty. But if you do the math, this is only 6 hours of max-speed traffic, for an entire month. Or look at it from the other extreme, no bursting - it's less than 1 mbps spread over an entire month. Frankly, 100 mbps is overkill, I'd be happy with a solid symmetric 40 mbps. The reason the numbers are so high is people who aren't network engineers think "hmm my internet is still not enough somehow, I should get more" but the rated speed is not the problem. In fact I recently switched from 200mbps/20mpbs cable to 100mbps/100mpbs fios, for the significantly faster and more consistent upload speed. I don't miss the extra 100mbps download speed at all. Summary: speed matters less the higher you go. The caps matter more.
        tptacek 9y ago
        I'm sure that's true, but what is the actual cap comparison between (say) Xfinity and Virgin Media? Virgin is definitely capped --- or at least, they definitely say it is.
        martinald 9y ago
        Xfinity often has a fixed, hard 250GB caps in most markets. VM in the UK has caps only on the upstream between 6pm-11pm, where it slows your upstream down by 50% if you upload a lot in that time slot. Hardly comparable?
        deleted 9y ago
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    - tracker1 9y ago
      100 mbit xfinity is under $58 in Chicago?
      - kasey_junk 9y ago
        I pay 80 for 300. But caps exist.
      - rayiner 9y ago
        RCN Chicago is $50 for 330 mbps, compared to $45 for Virginia media 100 mbps (both 12-month prices). RCN has no data cap, while Virgin has an extremely complicated traffic management policy (for uploads only): https://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy-30Mb-or-higher.html https://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic-manage....
        tracker1 9y ago
        It's way more for Cox in Phoenix, AZ; and for Comcast in Jacksonville, FL... almost twice as much for around 100mbps
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rayiner 9y ago
Here's the fiber prices for Telia in Sweden: https://www.telia.se/privat/bredband/jamfor-bredband?intcmp=bredband_subhero1 https://www.telia.se/privat/bredband/jamfor-bredband?intcmp=.... $123/month for "500-1000 mbps," and $50/month for "50-100 mbps." YouSee charges $111 for 1000/100 in Denmark: https://yousee.dk/bredbaand/overblik.aspx https://yousee.dk/bredbaand/overblik.aspx. Hiper is an upstart service in Denmark charging $50 for gigabit: https://www.hiper.dk https://www.hiper.dk. AT&T/Google/Verizon charge roughly $70-100 for gigabit, which seems to be in the same range. Moreover, the FCC actually has little to do with broadband deployment, whether or not it is "captured." It's the local governments that are in charge of almost all the relevant roadblocks to deployment: franchising, pole attachments, etc.
- elipsey 9y ago
  You can get Gb internet for $100 per month, and you think this is normal in the United States? Speculum comunications charges $95/mo. for a (theoretical) 20/1Mb connection and they're the only game in town. This is normal for most of the country.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 9y ago
    The point isn't that it's normal, it's that at least in that range of the market (which covers about a quarter of US households and growing rapidly) the price is competitive. If you have another data point for comparison you're welcome to post it.
- croon 9y ago
  And here's fiber prices for Bahnhof in Sweden: https://www.bahnhof.se/stockholm/familjebostader-svenska-bostader-svensk-infrastruktur-einar-mattsson-stadsholmen-zitius/familjebostader-svenska-bostader-svensk-infrastruktur-einar-mattsson-stadsholmen-zitius#orderNow https://www.bahnhof.se/stockholm/familjebostader-svenska-bos... $76 for 1Gbps/1Gbps (house plan, apartment plans are usually cheaper because of scale) The difference is that fiber is widely available in Sweden. You can usually pay ~$2000 to have it installed in your house in major cities, if it's not already, and subsidized ~$500 in rural towns. Most houses built in the last 10-15 years already has it installed. And it's installed in most apartment complexes longer than that. And then you have a choice of 5+ ISPs.

tptacek 9y ago

What city in Germany could I compare to Chicago to find rates that were significantly cheaper in Europe? From what I've seen in a few minutes of clicking, they seem broadly comparable.

martinald 9y ago
I know the UK market best, but you can get uncapped 38meg VDSL for £25/month Inc tax - about $30/month. Virgin Media is £45 for 100mbit DOCSIS. I have hyperoptic in my apartment, which is about £55/month for uncapped 1gig up/down. Keep in mind European prices include all taxes in their prices.
- tptacek 9y ago
  I could be wrong --- I'm not looking very hard --- but that DOCSIS rate looks higher than the Xfinity equivalent in Chicago.
  - martinald 9y ago
    Including tax and fees with no caps?
    - tptacek 9y ago
      So, I don't know, but if we're down to quibbling amount the amount of money taxes represent, I think the argument that Europe has drastically better Internet access than the US is over, isn't it?
      - ploxiln 9y ago
        The caps make a huge, huge difference. That's why mobile LTE plans are sold almost completely in terms of the cap. Consider a 100 mbps cable connection with a classic comcast 250 GiB cap. Now obviously home internet is designed and sold to be bursty. But if you do the math, this is only 6 hours of max-speed traffic, for an entire month. Or look at it from the other extreme, no bursting - it's less than 1 mbps spread over an entire month. Frankly, 100 mbps is overkill, I'd be happy with a solid symmetric 40 mbps. The reason the numbers are so high is people who aren't network engineers think "hmm my internet is still not enough somehow, I should get more" but the rated speed is not the problem. In fact I recently switched from 200mbps/20mpbs cable to 100mbps/100mpbs fios, for the significantly faster and more consistent upload speed. I don't miss the extra 100mbps download speed at all. Summary: speed matters less the higher you go. The caps matter more.
        tptacek 9y ago
        I'm sure that's true, but what is the actual cap comparison between (say) Xfinity and Virgin Media? Virgin is definitely capped --- or at least, they definitely say it is.
        martinald 9y ago
        Xfinity often has a fixed, hard 250GB caps in most markets. VM in the UK has caps only on the upstream between 6pm-11pm, where it slows your upstream down by 50% if you upload a lot in that time slot. Hardly comparable?
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - tracker1 9y ago
    100 mbit xfinity is under $58 in Chicago?
    - kasey_junk 9y ago
      I pay 80 for 300. But caps exist.
    - rayiner 9y ago
      RCN Chicago is $50 for 330 mbps, compared to $45 for Virginia media 100 mbps (both 12-month prices). RCN has no data cap, while Virgin has an extremely complicated traffic management policy (for uploads only): https://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy-30Mb-or-higher.html https://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic-manage....
      - tracker1 9y ago
        It's way more for Cox in Phoenix, AZ; and for Comcast in Jacksonville, FL... almost twice as much for around 100mbps
- deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago

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rayiner 9y ago

Here's the fiber prices for Telia in Sweden: https://www.telia.se/privat/bredband/jamfor-bredband?intcmp=bredband_subhero1 https://www.telia.se/privat/bredband/jamfor-bredband?intcmp=.... $123/month for "500-1000 mbps," and $50/month for "50-100 mbps." YouSee charges $111 for 1000/100 in Denmark: https://yousee.dk/bredbaand/overblik.aspx https://yousee.dk/bredbaand/overblik.aspx. Hiper is an upstart service in Denmark charging $50 for gigabit: https://www.hiper.dk https://www.hiper.dk. AT&T/Google/Verizon charge roughly $70-100 for gigabit, which seems to be in the same range. Moreover, the FCC actually has little to do with broadband deployment, whether or not it is "captured." It's the local governments that are in charge of almost all the relevant roadblocks to deployment: franchising, pole attachments, etc.

elipsey 9y ago
You can get Gb internet for $100 per month, and you think this is normal in the United States? Speculum comunications charges $95/mo. for a (theoretical) 20/1Mb connection and they're the only game in town. This is normal for most of the country.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 9y ago
  The point isn't that it's normal, it's that at least in that range of the market (which covers about a quarter of US households and growing rapidly) the price is competitive. If you have another data point for comparison you're welcome to post it.
croon 9y ago
And here's fiber prices for Bahnhof in Sweden: https://www.bahnhof.se/stockholm/familjebostader-svenska-bostader-svensk-infrastruktur-einar-mattsson-stadsholmen-zitius/familjebostader-svenska-bostader-svensk-infrastruktur-einar-mattsson-stadsholmen-zitius#orderNow https://www.bahnhof.se/stockholm/familjebostader-svenska-bos... $76 for 1Gbps/1Gbps (house plan, apartment plans are usually cheaper because of scale) The difference is that fiber is widely available in Sweden. You can usually pay ~$2000 to have it installed in your house in major cities, if it's not already, and subsidized ~$500 in rural towns. Most houses built in the last 10-15 years already has it installed. And it's installed in most apartment complexes longer than that. And then you have a choice of 5+ ISPs.