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At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. We don't have that excuse here in Germany. The situation

At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. We don't have that excuse here in Germany. The situation isn't entirely terrible in Germany, but extremely variable depending on your location. I have 1Gbit for 40 EUR per month, but there are certainly places that aren't even remote that get no reasonable broadband.

Darmody 6y ago
Yeah, the US is huge, but technologically we could say they are the most advanced country in the world. All the big boys are there. I would expect a lot more from them. And in some places, even big cities, people don't even have a choice as there's only company.
ben_w 6y ago
> At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. Why does that excuse America? The continent of Europe is also huge. It isn’t like this stuff is installed by one solitary overworked technician going house-to-house, big countries (and regions) can employ more people to do more work, and can raise more money from more customers.
- fabian2k 6y ago
  The US has around 15% of the population density of Germany. It's much easier to provide broadband to larger cities than to rural areas.
  - fredzel 6y ago
    I guess it might be also pretty hard if it's city centre full of old buildings.
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    Norway has overall low population density, and seems to do fine.
    - agildehaus 6y ago
      148,729 mi² vs 3.797 million mi²
      - bryanlarsen 6y ago
        15 people per square kilometer (Norway) vs 34 people per square kilometer (continental us).
      - MagnumOpus 6y ago
        With corresponding higher amount of people to do the cabling. (Which is still irrelevant, nobody complains about the lack of gigabit ISPs in the Rockies or the Wyoming countryside, they complain that you can't get it in coastal or midwestern suburbia where the vast majority of Americans live.
    - ByteJockey 6y ago
      They have a ridiculous amount of oil for their size. That being said, they've also done a pretty good job in managing that money (which is rare for natural resource rich countries).
    - jeroenhd 6y ago
      The population spread of Norway more closely resembles that of Canada than that of the US, though. It's very difficult to inhabit large swathes of land in the north and center of Norway, so most people live in the southern and western parts of the country near the coast. In the US, on the other hand, remote places are a lot more inhabitable. There are just more remote towns in the US, with more people owning more land and being spread out more as a result. Of course, this doesn't excuse the fact that some dense towns in the US a few miles from a major city still have to deal with shitty broadband because no ISP is willing to invest in hooking them up to FttH. On average, though, the US will probably do worse than Norway for the foreseeable future because of the difference in where and how people live.
      - TulliusCicero 6y ago
        Okay, and how's the internet out there, in the more rural parts of Norway? But yeah the bigger issue is that often even in urban or suburban areas, the internet is still bad.
  - ornornor 6y ago
    That’s disingenuous. You don’t need broadband in the middle of the desert where there is no population. You need it in cities and towns where the density is much more similar to Europe etc.
    - danielheath 6y ago
      That's true, but the USA is famous for huge, sprawling suburban rings around its cities (vs Europe where the impression is far more 'inner city apartments').
  - dzhiurgis 6y ago
    Sure, but US has higher urbanisation rate. There's just no excuse not to link up your urban areas.
Koliakis 6y ago
It's even worse if you're a company in Germany. The pricing for business lines (and the speeds you get) are atrocious.
shafyy 6y ago
Here in Berlin, there's not even fiber for consumers yet (there probably is for commercial). Meanwhile, in my native Zurich there's fiber everywhere and you get 10x the speed for the same price.
disgu 6y ago
> At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. That could be an excuse if you ignore the fact that the terrible service is not limited to rural regions in the US. It's often really expensive and slow even in places that are packed with people.
oneplane 6y ago
It's an excuse all the same; if you can put electricity and phone lines on every address, fiber isn't that much harder. It' just that major ISPs in the US are sociopaths and don't like the margins you'd get with such a setup. Slow, overbooked connection hubs and for-profit-DPI and data collection (and sales) on an ISP level is the norm. Even net neutrality isn't something the government is capable of accepting and enforcing.

Darmody 6y ago

Yeah, the US is huge, but technologically we could say they are the most advanced country in the world. All the big boys are there. I would expect a lot more from them. And in some places, even big cities, people don't even have a choice as there's only company.

ben_w 6y ago

> At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. Why does that excuse America? The continent of Europe is also huge. It isn’t like this stuff is installed by one solitary overworked technician going house-to-house, big countries (and regions) can employ more people to do more work, and can raise more money from more customers.

fabian2k 6y ago
The US has around 15% of the population density of Germany. It's much easier to provide broadband to larger cities than to rural areas.
- fredzel 6y ago
  I guess it might be also pretty hard if it's city centre full of old buildings.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  Norway has overall low population density, and seems to do fine.
  - agildehaus 6y ago
    148,729 mi² vs 3.797 million mi²
    - bryanlarsen 6y ago
      15 people per square kilometer (Norway) vs 34 people per square kilometer (continental us).
    - MagnumOpus 6y ago
      With corresponding higher amount of people to do the cabling. (Which is still irrelevant, nobody complains about the lack of gigabit ISPs in the Rockies or the Wyoming countryside, they complain that you can't get it in coastal or midwestern suburbia where the vast majority of Americans live.
  - ByteJockey 6y ago
    They have a ridiculous amount of oil for their size. That being said, they've also done a pretty good job in managing that money (which is rare for natural resource rich countries).
  - jeroenhd 6y ago
    The population spread of Norway more closely resembles that of Canada than that of the US, though. It's very difficult to inhabit large swathes of land in the north and center of Norway, so most people live in the southern and western parts of the country near the coast. In the US, on the other hand, remote places are a lot more inhabitable. There are just more remote towns in the US, with more people owning more land and being spread out more as a result. Of course, this doesn't excuse the fact that some dense towns in the US a few miles from a major city still have to deal with shitty broadband because no ISP is willing to invest in hooking them up to FttH. On average, though, the US will probably do worse than Norway for the foreseeable future because of the difference in where and how people live.
    - TulliusCicero 6y ago
      Okay, and how's the internet out there, in the more rural parts of Norway? But yeah the bigger issue is that often even in urban or suburban areas, the internet is still bad.
- ornornor 6y ago
  That’s disingenuous. You don’t need broadband in the middle of the desert where there is no population. You need it in cities and towns where the density is much more similar to Europe etc.
  - danielheath 6y ago
    That's true, but the USA is famous for huge, sprawling suburban rings around its cities (vs Europe where the impression is far more 'inner city apartments').
- dzhiurgis 6y ago
  Sure, but US has higher urbanisation rate. There's just no excuse not to link up your urban areas.

Koliakis 6y ago

It's even worse if you're a company in Germany. The pricing for business lines (and the speeds you get) are atrocious.

shafyy 6y ago

Here in Berlin, there's not even fiber for consumers yet (there probably is for commercial). Meanwhile, in my native Zurich there's fiber everywhere and you get 10x the speed for the same price.

disgu 6y ago

> At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. That could be an excuse if you ignore the fact that the terrible service is not limited to rural regions in the US. It's often really expensive and slow even in places that are packed with people.

oneplane 6y ago

It's an excuse all the same; if you can put electricity and phone lines on every address, fiber isn't that much harder. It' just that major ISPs in the US are sociopaths and don't like the margins you'd get with such a setup. Slow, overbooked connection hubs and for-profit-DPI and data collection (and sales) on an ISP level is the norm. Even net neutrality isn't something the government is capable of accepting and enforcing.