9 ms·

The curious case of Romanian broadband

jbirer 6y ago
As a Romanian person I am baffled hearing the speed and data cap woes of American people. I always saw America as superior and something to aspire to as a kid. What your ISPs are doing is pure robbery and I am surprised there's not more backlash about this.
- Gigarex 6y ago
  I'm a romanian too and happen to agree with you. Our own publicly traded company DiGi has around a 2% dividend yield while At&t has a 7% dividend yield, a bad product and a high price.
- mgkimsal 6y ago
  I was in Bucharest a couple of years ago and used wired broadband in an apartment. It was good - not terribly faster than what I get here, or at least ... not faster such that I'd notice. I suspect the price was cheaper, although unsure what the 'big mac price' might be for people who live there day to day. I have a 200 down / 20 up connection at my office for $80/month - roughly the same at home for ~$50/month. At home, we don't normally get that unless actually wired in, as the wifi stuff around the house is bad (boosters don't help much). At the office, even over wifi, it can often be over the 200 - the wifi is probably a bottleneck there. The town where the office is is offering 'gigabit to the home', but only in new construction homes. The downtown spot I'm in won't get upgrades for a while, from what I'm hearing. I'm in the suburbs of a moderately large tech area, and almost rural by some measures. That said, I know some friends a bit further out aren't served very well at all, and are struggling with satellite connections as their last hope for 'fast' internet (6-10m from what I remember). > I am surprised there's not more backlash about this. FWIW, we (USA) get hosed around on so many things (healthcare, net, etc) and are also fed a patriotic diet of "America is the best" growing up. Because we're so large and isolated, many folks never travel, and a couple generations ago, most didn't have access to international publications/media like we do today. All that combines to give many of my fellow citizens a somewhat distorted view of our own standing and quality of life. There's little reason to 'backlash' when you think you're already "the best".
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    I think that exceptionalism rote taught explains a lot of America's inherent conservatism - why change if you're already the best?
    - rayiner 6y ago
      We’re conservative because we’re rich and comfortable. We have the highest disposable income in the OECD: https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/teaser/14773.jpeg https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/teaser/14773.jpeg. The median household income of a married couple with kids is $95,000. And the taxes are extremely low in that bracket. Our unemployment rate in the midst of Trump’s botched handling of COVID is less than what France’s unemployment rate is in a normal year. Even when you hear complaints about things like healthcare, the debates are more about universal coverage than the quality or affordability of care itself. Americans are overwhelmingly satisfied with their own healthcare: https://news.gallup.com/poll/245195/americans-rate-healthcare-quite-positively.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/245195/americans-rate-healthcar.... (And, Americans being preternaturally optimistic, just assign less value to the security of a safety net in the case they lose their job, etc.) Americans live in houses far larger than the average European: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7ei5f4/comparing_average_house_size_in_us_to_europe https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7ei5f4/com.... We have more TVs, more cars, etc. It’s easy to assume that Americans are just ignorant and irrational. But Americans know that Europe has a bunch of services we don’t, and they pay much higher taxes in return. Democrats make that comparison all the time. People are aware of it. But the fact is that the current system works pretty well for your typical voter. A flatter society with more social services would be better for a lot of people. However, your average suburban married couple would take a significant hit to their standard of living if they lived in France instead.
      - EdwardDiego 6y ago
        > We’re conservative because we’re rich and comfortable. Some of you are. You're only surpassed by Romania, Costa Rica, and South Africa in this chart: https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-rate.htm https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-rate.htm Romania, Italy, South Africa in this one: https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-gap.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-gap.htm#indicator-c... Doing better in this one, in that now you're behind Bulgaria, Turkey, Chile, Costa Rica and South Africa. https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm#indic... I'm assuming that disposable household income per capita doesn't quite capture the severely unequal distributions of disposable household income. > Americans live in houses far larger than the average European: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7ei5f4/com https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7ei5f4/com.... We have more TVs, more cars, etc. That's a cultural difference, not at all indicative of anything - European cities are typically built for denser living - far fewer McMansions, far more well built, sound proofed apartments with ample public transport networks, to the extent that one can work and live in a city without owning a car. Although there are a bunch of bicycles. In fact, very few of my German colleagues own cars because they have no reason to, as they all live in major cities. If they need a car for a holiday, they rent one. > Americans are overwhelmingly satisfied with their own healthcare Which is exactly the point I was making, I mean, the country with one of the lowest passport holding rates doesn't really have much to compare their health system to.
- rayiner 6y ago
  Its not just ISPs. It’s part of a larger problem with building infrastructure due to our regulatory environment and high labor costs. In my state, they’re building a tram line through the suburbs that is costing as much per mile as Copenhagen’s new fully automated circle line subway. That’s a public project, but costs are still insanely high.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  Romania should take advantage of the move to remote work to attract businesses and workers.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  America has a lot of legacy. A lot of stuff was built out post-WW2 when everything was still green fields. Now, several decades later, all of this infrastructure still (mostly) "works" so everyone is not enthusiastic about spending money to make it 'better'. I'm guessing that during those same decades many/most Communist countries did not have awesome infrastructure, and so when they became more open, there was a lot of catching up to do. So in many ways you are in a country that is (relatively speaking) like the US was during the 1950s and 1960s. In some ways you 'skipped' a generation and so leap-frogged America a bit. Also, it seems that Romania has a population bulge of people our 40 years of age: * https://www.indexmundi.com/romania/age_structure.html https://www.indexmundi.com/romania/age_structure.html When those people hit their 60s, like the Baby Boomers in the US now are, then you may find economic growth to be more of a struggle (see Japan). * https://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/age_structure.html https://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/age_structure.html * https://www.indexmundi.com/japan/age_structure.html https://www.indexmundi.com/japan/age_structure.html
- stefantalpalaru 6y ago
  > I always saw America as superior and something to aspire to as a kid. That was propaganda from CIA's radio stations: Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. This is America: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-low...
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  It seems to be in the DNA of the "system". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Wars
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
It's awesome what happens in the absence of laws written by ISP lobbyists & passed by their purchased legislators.
moltar 6y ago
This was pretty much the case across Eastern Europe. In Kiev, I ordered an internet connection and to my surprise I was told that it was all done and ready to go without any visits to my apartment. I was surprised. The wall outlet was an Ethernet port. No TV cable. No phone line. Direct RJ45. Later I learned that everything is in the central wiring closet somewhere in the building. And many buildings are just connected roof to roof with cables. I had 100/100 mbit connection, with unlimited data, for $15 USD/mo. Don’t remember having any issues. That was 5 years ago. Back in the early days buildings often had their own LAN for sharing warez and gaming. Sometimes adjacent buildings were connected for extended network.
- dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
  > The wall outlet was an Ethernet port. Huh, never thought of this as weird. I remember using a dial-up modem in the early 2000s in Romania, but since then I've just had a normal Ethernet port coming out of the wall everywhere, including Western Europe.
  - moltar 6y ago
    In North America you get either a TV Cable (coaxial) outlet, which then needs a cable modem (DOCSIS). Or you get a phone outlet, for which you need a DSL modem. For both cases, back in the day, you still needed a router. Nowadays it’s usually a modem-router combo, and usually they are terrible. Everyone always has a rats nest of wires somewhere behind a TV or couch. :D
    - omnimus 6y ago
      This is the case even in eastern europe. Especially in older cities there was big rush to connect people with TV Cable in 90s and that gets reused for internet. I suspect connections built in recent years are ethernet and if you want TV they do in through that other way atound.
    - Fnoord 6y ago
      Same in other Western countries like The Netherlands and Germany. The cable network is from the time cable TV was rolled out (70s/80s). The phone network is older, and also more unreliable. VDSL and DOCSIS are mostly FttC though. I believe EU demands people to be allowed to freely pick their own router. Whatever brand it is and whoever owns it you can put it near your demarcation point (in Dutch called ISRA for phone, AOP for cable, and FTU (English acronym) for fiber). This is usually in the same vicinity where gas/water/electricity enters house. From there you can wire your house with ethernet. Maybe add in a WLAN repeater here and there, proper cable management, and you're done.
hapless 6y ago
The final digs about Verizon Fios in Hell's Kitchen are pretty fucking rich, if you ask me. There's no need for "telephone poles." That is complete nonsense, not least because Verizon has the monopoly on underground conduit in Manhattan. They literally own the Empire City Subway, the ostensibly vendor-neutral central conduit system that runs under every single street in Hell's Kitchen. For some "mysterious" reason, no one other than Verizon can ever get conduit space in the ECS. Gee I wonder why that is. At the same time, Verizon has no interest in using that space for fiber -- they'd rather leave hundred year old dead copper lines sit than admit competitors OR upgrade their own infrastructure Fios isn't failing to deploy to his building because it's hard to negotiate with landlords -- they are failing to deploy because they do not believe the city will enforce the terms of their franchise. It's more profitable to wire a few high-density buildings, and leave everyone else to rot, assuming the city never fines them. (That looks like a safe assumption from where I am sitting.) Verizon has ample capability and they choose not to live up to their obligations.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  There is a lawsuit from the City of New York against Verizon, but I suspect the fight is long and hard for this one. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/04/nyc-blasts-broadband-competition-shortage-as-it-pursues-suit-against-verizon/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/04/nyc-b...
miahi 6y ago
What the article does not mention is that most of those networks are now gone. They started around 2000 as ad-hoc networks (a few friends that shared files through SMB and maybe an Internet connection) but around 2002 they evolved to be real businesses, with networks spanning tens of buildings and hundreds of apartments, sharing an expensive business link and even starting to do peering across networks. Most used copper cables across buildings, so they were quite often hit by lightning and network switches and cables had to be replaced (fiber was hard to install and maintain, as in some cases the physical security of the network equipment was low and media converters could be stolen). Starting with 2005 the bigger/"normal" ISPs started to buy these networks (the businesses that maintained them), and migrate the customers to a more standardized / legal (and more expensive) network link. Also, in the last years an underground fiber backbone was installed in Bucharest, and the fiber above ground started to migrate (not really willingly) to that. The problem is that there is no incentive to uninstall unused fiber from the poles (it's not valuable as a second-hand object and hard to recycle) so that fiber just stays there, in many cases broken.
- mobilio 6y ago
  Same thing happens in Bulgaria. First they start with Ethernet to the buildings and one switch for each entrance to all occupants. And they was times when most of infrastructure was above the ground on poles. That was 20 years ago. But like 10+ years ago they start making fiber to the buildings (FTTB) and now they're migrating to fiber to the home (FTTH). For now most of infrastructure is underground.
NuDinNou 6y ago
The good an cheap internet is one reason that makes romanians proud. You can get 940 Mbps down, 450 Mbps up for about $9/month (included in the price is also 50 GB cloud storage in their Google Drive type of service) [0] For internet on your smartphone you have an option of ~ 2$/month for 50 GB, 4G speeds [1] You can check the coverage here [2] [0] https://www.digiromania.ro/servicii/internet/internet-fix/fiberlink-1000 https://www.digiromania.ro/servicii/internet/internet-fix/fi... [1] https://www.digiromania.ro/servicii/telefonie-mobila/optim/digi-mobil-optim-2 https://www.digiromania.ro/servicii/telefonie-mobila/optim/d... [2] https://aisemnal.ro/home https://aisemnal.ro/home
mothsonasloth 6y ago
Here's a related documentary about Havana's pirate LAN networks by Clothmap https://youtu.be/lEplzHraw3c https://youtu.be/lEplzHraw3c
bserge 6y ago
A similarly curious case is Moldova, Romania's neighbour. I grew up there, I remember dial up and wasting a lot of my mother's money on it. Then the state run ISP rolled out ADSL and it got way better. In the span of 2-3 years, I went from 64/64 kbit/s to 6/1 Mbps. In another year, it was 24/1 Mbps, and yet another year or so they started rolling out fiber, with free upgrades for everyone as long as you renewed the contract. 30/30 Mbps, then 100/100 Mbps, now you can get 1000/1000 for $20 or 300/300 Mbps for $10. Upgrading to a higher speed is still free afaik, but your contract gets renewed for 3 years. Interestingly, it used to be possible to get multiple connections at the same house (like, literally, multiple fiber cables). Not sure if that's still possible and what the limit was per individual/house, but I always wondered if one could get something ridiculous like 4000/4000 Mbps aggregate speed. And yes, the upload speeds are true, although their own routers won't reach them. But good news, you can use any router with an SFP transceiver. I am not aware of anything like the private networks created in Romania by individuals. There are a few other ISPs that started early, and technically competed with Moldtelecom (the state run ISP) with their own cables, but they did not operate outside the capital for a very long time. Moldtelecom had a monopoly. There used to be a lot of Internet cafes that everyone would use for LAN gaming and Internet browsing, it was fun. This might be the best thing the government has done in the country since independence, I don't know what motivations they had, they didn't seem to be lobbied by anyone since there were no Internet startups with significant influence. They just sort of... did it. If anyone knows more about the history of Internet in the Republic of Moldova, please comment. Now there's talks of selling Moldtelecom to Huawei, which might be a bad idea. They already use Huawei equipment, just not sure what they would do if they buy the whole company.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  There's also no limit on speeds inside Moldova (or hasn't been for a long time), so you could basically treat all of Moldova as a giant LAN party (as more and more communities got access to broadband). I remember my Windows box couldn't even cope with the download speeds and would freeze for some large downloads.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Basically the same situation here in Greece. I remember the first time I got (256k) DSL. It was magical that I could be online and still make phonecalls from the landline!
womitt 6y ago
In Budapest our company has 1000/1000 link for ~$500, and it's fckn awesome ;)
londons_explore 6y ago
There are 2 key things you can do to reduce regulatory burden: * Have a time limit for responding to licensing requests. Eg. 14 days. If the government can't accept or reject a request in that time period, it is auto accepted. If it is rejected, a resubmitted request must be accepted if it addresses the rejection reason. * Allow a business to operate for 30 days before, during, and after submitting a license request, and with no penalty if 'in good faith' they believed it was reasonably likely their request would be accepted.

As a Romanian person I am baffled hearing the speed and data cap woes of American people. I always saw America as superior and something to aspire to as a kid. What your ISPs are doing is pure robbery and I am surprised there's not more backlash about this.

Gigarex 6y ago
I'm a romanian too and happen to agree with you. Our own publicly traded company DiGi has around a 2% dividend yield while At&t has a 7% dividend yield, a bad product and a high price.
mgkimsal 6y ago
I was in Bucharest a couple of years ago and used wired broadband in an apartment. It was good - not terribly faster than what I get here, or at least ... not faster such that I'd notice. I suspect the price was cheaper, although unsure what the 'big mac price' might be for people who live there day to day. I have a 200 down / 20 up connection at my office for $80/month - roughly the same at home for ~$50/month. At home, we don't normally get that unless actually wired in, as the wifi stuff around the house is bad (boosters don't help much). At the office, even over wifi, it can often be over the 200 - the wifi is probably a bottleneck there. The town where the office is is offering 'gigabit to the home', but only in new construction homes. The downtown spot I'm in won't get upgrades for a while, from what I'm hearing. I'm in the suburbs of a moderately large tech area, and almost rural by some measures. That said, I know some friends a bit further out aren't served very well at all, and are struggling with satellite connections as their last hope for 'fast' internet (6-10m from what I remember). > I am surprised there's not more backlash about this. FWIW, we (USA) get hosed around on so many things (healthcare, net, etc) and are also fed a patriotic diet of "America is the best" growing up. Because we're so large and isolated, many folks never travel, and a couple generations ago, most didn't have access to international publications/media like we do today. All that combines to give many of my fellow citizens a somewhat distorted view of our own standing and quality of life. There's little reason to 'backlash' when you think you're already "the best".
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  I think that exceptionalism rote taught explains a lot of America's inherent conservatism - why change if you're already the best?
  - rayiner 6y ago
    We’re conservative because we’re rich and comfortable. We have the highest disposable income in the OECD: https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/teaser/14773.jpeg https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/teaser/14773.jpeg. The median household income of a married couple with kids is $95,000. And the taxes are extremely low in that bracket. Our unemployment rate in the midst of Trump’s botched handling of COVID is less than what France’s unemployment rate is in a normal year. Even when you hear complaints about things like healthcare, the debates are more about universal coverage than the quality or affordability of care itself. Americans are overwhelmingly satisfied with their own healthcare: https://news.gallup.com/poll/245195/americans-rate-healthcare-quite-positively.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/245195/americans-rate-healthcar.... (And, Americans being preternaturally optimistic, just assign less value to the security of a safety net in the case they lose their job, etc.) Americans live in houses far larger than the average European: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7ei5f4/comparing_average_house_size_in_us_to_europe https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7ei5f4/com.... We have more TVs, more cars, etc. It’s easy to assume that Americans are just ignorant and irrational. But Americans know that Europe has a bunch of services we don’t, and they pay much higher taxes in return. Democrats make that comparison all the time. People are aware of it. But the fact is that the current system works pretty well for your typical voter. A flatter society with more social services would be better for a lot of people. However, your average suburban married couple would take a significant hit to their standard of living if they lived in France instead.
    - EdwardDiego 6y ago
      > We’re conservative because we’re rich and comfortable. Some of you are. You're only surpassed by Romania, Costa Rica, and South Africa in this chart: https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-rate.htm https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-rate.htm Romania, Italy, South Africa in this one: https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-gap.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-gap.htm#indicator-c... Doing better in this one, in that now you're behind Bulgaria, Turkey, Chile, Costa Rica and South Africa. https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm#indic... I'm assuming that disposable household income per capita doesn't quite capture the severely unequal distributions of disposable household income. > Americans live in houses far larger than the average European: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7ei5f4/com https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7ei5f4/com.... We have more TVs, more cars, etc. That's a cultural difference, not at all indicative of anything - European cities are typically built for denser living - far fewer McMansions, far more well built, sound proofed apartments with ample public transport networks, to the extent that one can work and live in a city without owning a car. Although there are a bunch of bicycles. In fact, very few of my German colleagues own cars because they have no reason to, as they all live in major cities. If they need a car for a holiday, they rent one. > Americans are overwhelmingly satisfied with their own healthcare Which is exactly the point I was making, I mean, the country with one of the lowest passport holding rates doesn't really have much to compare their health system to.
rayiner 6y ago
Its not just ISPs. It’s part of a larger problem with building infrastructure due to our regulatory environment and high labor costs. In my state, they’re building a tram line through the suburbs that is costing as much per mile as Copenhagen’s new fully automated circle line subway. That’s a public project, but costs are still insanely high.
cblconfederate 6y ago
Romania should take advantage of the move to remote work to attract businesses and workers.
throw0101a 6y ago
America has a lot of legacy. A lot of stuff was built out post-WW2 when everything was still green fields. Now, several decades later, all of this infrastructure still (mostly) "works" so everyone is not enthusiastic about spending money to make it 'better'. I'm guessing that during those same decades many/most Communist countries did not have awesome infrastructure, and so when they became more open, there was a lot of catching up to do. So in many ways you are in a country that is (relatively speaking) like the US was during the 1950s and 1960s. In some ways you 'skipped' a generation and so leap-frogged America a bit. Also, it seems that Romania has a population bulge of people our 40 years of age: * https://www.indexmundi.com/romania/age_structure.html https://www.indexmundi.com/romania/age_structure.html When those people hit their 60s, like the Baby Boomers in the US now are, then you may find economic growth to be more of a struggle (see Japan). * https://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/age_structure.html https://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/age_structure.html * https://www.indexmundi.com/japan/age_structure.html https://www.indexmundi.com/japan/age_structure.html
stefantalpalaru 6y ago
> I always saw America as superior and something to aspire to as a kid. That was propaganda from CIA's radio stations: Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. This is America: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-low...
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
It seems to be in the DNA of the "system". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Wars

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

It's awesome what happens in the absence of laws written by ISP lobbyists & passed by their purchased legislators.

moltar 6y ago

This was pretty much the case across Eastern Europe. In Kiev, I ordered an internet connection and to my surprise I was told that it was all done and ready to go without any visits to my apartment. I was surprised. The wall outlet was an Ethernet port. No TV cable. No phone line. Direct RJ45. Later I learned that everything is in the central wiring closet somewhere in the building. And many buildings are just connected roof to roof with cables. I had 100/100 mbit connection, with unlimited data, for $15 USD/mo. Don’t remember having any issues. That was 5 years ago. Back in the early days buildings often had their own LAN for sharing warez and gaming. Sometimes adjacent buildings were connected for extended network.

dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
> The wall outlet was an Ethernet port. Huh, never thought of this as weird. I remember using a dial-up modem in the early 2000s in Romania, but since then I've just had a normal Ethernet port coming out of the wall everywhere, including Western Europe.
- moltar 6y ago
  In North America you get either a TV Cable (coaxial) outlet, which then needs a cable modem (DOCSIS). Or you get a phone outlet, for which you need a DSL modem. For both cases, back in the day, you still needed a router. Nowadays it’s usually a modem-router combo, and usually they are terrible. Everyone always has a rats nest of wires somewhere behind a TV or couch. :D
  - omnimus 6y ago
    This is the case even in eastern europe. Especially in older cities there was big rush to connect people with TV Cable in 90s and that gets reused for internet. I suspect connections built in recent years are ethernet and if you want TV they do in through that other way atound.
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    Same in other Western countries like The Netherlands and Germany. The cable network is from the time cable TV was rolled out (70s/80s). The phone network is older, and also more unreliable. VDSL and DOCSIS are mostly FttC though. I believe EU demands people to be allowed to freely pick their own router. Whatever brand it is and whoever owns it you can put it near your demarcation point (in Dutch called ISRA for phone, AOP for cable, and FTU (English acronym) for fiber). This is usually in the same vicinity where gas/water/electricity enters house. From there you can wire your house with ethernet. Maybe add in a WLAN repeater here and there, proper cable management, and you're done.

hapless 6y ago

The final digs about Verizon Fios in Hell's Kitchen are pretty fucking rich, if you ask me. There's no need for "telephone poles." That is complete nonsense, not least because Verizon has the monopoly on underground conduit in Manhattan. They literally own the Empire City Subway, the ostensibly vendor-neutral central conduit system that runs under every single street in Hell's Kitchen. For some "mysterious" reason, no one other than Verizon can ever get conduit space in the ECS. Gee I wonder why that is. At the same time, Verizon has no interest in using that space for fiber -- they'd rather leave hundred year old dead copper lines sit than admit competitors OR upgrade their own infrastructure Fios isn't failing to deploy to his building because it's hard to negotiate with landlords -- they are failing to deploy because they do not believe the city will enforce the terms of their franchise. It's more profitable to wire a few high-density buildings, and leave everyone else to rot, assuming the city never fines them. (That looks like a safe assumption from where I am sitting.) Verizon has ample capability and they choose not to live up to their obligations.

bobthepanda 6y ago
There is a lawsuit from the City of New York against Verizon, but I suspect the fight is long and hard for this one. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/04/nyc-blasts-broadband-competition-shortage-as-it-pursues-suit-against-verizon/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/04/nyc-b...

miahi 6y ago

What the article does not mention is that most of those networks are now gone. They started around 2000 as ad-hoc networks (a few friends that shared files through SMB and maybe an Internet connection) but around 2002 they evolved to be real businesses, with networks spanning tens of buildings and hundreds of apartments, sharing an expensive business link and even starting to do peering across networks. Most used copper cables across buildings, so they were quite often hit by lightning and network switches and cables had to be replaced (fiber was hard to install and maintain, as in some cases the physical security of the network equipment was low and media converters could be stolen). Starting with 2005 the bigger/"normal" ISPs started to buy these networks (the businesses that maintained them), and migrate the customers to a more standardized / legal (and more expensive) network link. Also, in the last years an underground fiber backbone was installed in Bucharest, and the fiber above ground started to migrate (not really willingly) to that. The problem is that there is no incentive to uninstall unused fiber from the poles (it's not valuable as a second-hand object and hard to recycle) so that fiber just stays there, in many cases broken.

mobilio 6y ago
Same thing happens in Bulgaria. First they start with Ethernet to the buildings and one switch for each entrance to all occupants. And they was times when most of infrastructure was above the ground on poles. That was 20 years ago. But like 10+ years ago they start making fiber to the buildings (FTTB) and now they're migrating to fiber to the home (FTTH). For now most of infrastructure is underground.

NuDinNou 6y ago

The good an cheap internet is one reason that makes romanians proud. You can get 940 Mbps down, 450 Mbps up for about $9/month (included in the price is also 50 GB cloud storage in their Google Drive type of service) [0] For internet on your smartphone you have an option of ~ 2$/month for 50 GB, 4G speeds [1] You can check the coverage here [2] [0] https://www.digiromania.ro/servicii/internet/internet-fix/fiberlink-1000 https://www.digiromania.ro/servicii/internet/internet-fix/fi... [1] https://www.digiromania.ro/servicii/telefonie-mobila/optim/digi-mobil-optim-2 https://www.digiromania.ro/servicii/telefonie-mobila/optim/d... [2] https://aisemnal.ro/home https://aisemnal.ro/home

mothsonasloth 6y ago

Here's a related documentary about Havana's pirate LAN networks by Clothmap https://youtu.be/lEplzHraw3c https://youtu.be/lEplzHraw3c

bserge 6y ago

A similarly curious case is Moldova, Romania's neighbour. I grew up there, I remember dial up and wasting a lot of my mother's money on it. Then the state run ISP rolled out ADSL and it got way better. In the span of 2-3 years, I went from 64/64 kbit/s to 6/1 Mbps. In another year, it was 24/1 Mbps, and yet another year or so they started rolling out fiber, with free upgrades for everyone as long as you renewed the contract. 30/30 Mbps, then 100/100 Mbps, now you can get 1000/1000 for $20 or 300/300 Mbps for $10. Upgrading to a higher speed is still free afaik, but your contract gets renewed for 3 years. Interestingly, it used to be possible to get multiple connections at the same house (like, literally, multiple fiber cables). Not sure if that's still possible and what the limit was per individual/house, but I always wondered if one could get something ridiculous like 4000/4000 Mbps aggregate speed. And yes, the upload speeds are true, although their own routers won't reach them. But good news, you can use any router with an SFP transceiver. I am not aware of anything like the private networks created in Romania by individuals. There are a few other ISPs that started early, and technically competed with Moldtelecom (the state run ISP) with their own cables, but they did not operate outside the capital for a very long time. Moldtelecom had a monopoly. There used to be a lot of Internet cafes that everyone would use for LAN gaming and Internet browsing, it was fun. This might be the best thing the government has done in the country since independence, I don't know what motivations they had, they didn't seem to be lobbied by anyone since there were no Internet startups with significant influence. They just sort of... did it. If anyone knows more about the history of Internet in the Republic of Moldova, please comment. Now there's talks of selling Moldtelecom to Huawei, which might be a bad idea. They already use Huawei equipment, just not sure what they would do if they buy the whole company.

dmitriid 6y ago
There's also no limit on speeds inside Moldova (or hasn't been for a long time), so you could basically treat all of Moldova as a giant LAN party (as more and more communities got access to broadband). I remember my Windows box couldn't even cope with the download speeds and would freeze for some large downloads.
StavrosK 6y ago
Basically the same situation here in Greece. I remember the first time I got (256k) DSL. It was magical that I could be online and still make phonecalls from the landline!

womitt 6y ago

In Budapest our company has 1000/1000 link for ~$500, and it's fckn awesome ;)

londons_explore 6y ago

There are 2 key things you can do to reduce regulatory burden: * Have a time limit for responding to licensing requests. Eg. 14 days. If the government can't accept or reject a request in that time period, it is auto accepted. If it is rejected, a resubmitted request must be accepted if it addresses the rejection reason. * Allow a business to operate for 30 days before, during, and after submitting a license request, and with no penalty if 'in good faith' they believed it was reasonably likely their request would be accepted.