14 ms·

European internet is better because of regulation, forcing competition, and government investment in infrastructure, not the free market

nichos 6y ago
Competition is the free market, not regulation. Europe is massively different than America in size.
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  No, not really. Europe is a little bigger. The countries are more like eastern states. [1] This is somewhat important, considering most of the regulation on utilities are at a state level - and the utilities kind of are as well. Some of the countries are somewhat populous - you know, like states - and some have a pretty sparse population. You know, like states. [1] https://www.tripsavvy.com/so-just-how-big-is-europe-compared-to-the-us-anyway-3971019#:~:text=In%20terms%20of%20landmass%2C%20the,closer%20together%20than%20western%20states https://www.tripsavvy.com/so-just-how-big-is-europe-compared...).
rayiner 6y ago
European Internet, according TFA, is for the most part not better. The largest country above us on the list has 17 million people. The big European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, which together comprise 70% of the EU) have slower Internet. The fastest country on the list, Denmark, has almost no competition in the sector: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Denmark. And it’s been a model of deregulation: https://reason.com/2017/10/24/how-denmark-has-overtaken-the-us-as-a-te/ https://reason.com/2017/10/24/how-denmark-has-overtaken-the-... > Regulators around the world took notice and strove to emulate the success of the U.S. approach. Denmark in particular styled its own telecommunications regulations on the U.S. model, slashing its chief telecom regulator altogether and assigning small regulatory functions to other departments. Denmark is basically the situation where you have a “benevolent former monopoly,” like Verizon here in the mid Atlantic US.
- 2stop 6y ago
  Curious why population is even a factor here. If it legitimately should be... why not compare states of the US with states of the EU? (Seems a roughly equivalent thing to do)
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Bigger and more diverse countries have a wider variety of political issues and priorities. When was the last time broadband even registered as a political issue in the news, except in the context of some other more important political debate (urban/rural, racial disparity, etc.) And in the US, construction of infrastructure is mostly a municipal level issue, so its both low priority and varies dramatically by state. Here in Maryland (which is a small, politically homogenous, rich state, just like Denmark), most of the state has fiber or gigabit cable and broadband speeds are very fast: https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/fastest-internet-connection-infographic/ https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/fastest-internet-connect... > In fact, the next state on the list, Maryland, is nearly tied with Denmark for the second-fastest Internet speed on Earth.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  In Germany, it’s a mix of politics and greed that made us the running joke wrt to internet quality.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    Neuland. It’s especially bad with mobile data caps. I had a 500mb cap in ~2014.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    A weird notion I see is that "Countries who jumped on the Internet earlier can't have fiber because of existing competition" Fiber is actually MUCH, MUCH CHEAPER to deploy for higher speed networks than any high speed copper, because the later almost always implies to deploying a fibre network too to do everything other than the last mile.
baybal2 6y ago
Well, we can argue against that. It's best to say that both USA, and EU are very, very bureaucratised, and regulated. It's just one is marginally better at not introducing damaging regulations than the other. Japan too had 100mb/s since nineties for example, and theeeen..... they stuck. Speeds there not been rising by much since because regulations froze in nineties, and so did the market. Countries which had near zero telecommunication regulations covering the Internet, or had no Internet as such did advance more uniformly. I can have a 500mb/s over GPON, or even a symmetric gigabit over 1000BASE-LX even in *stan countries, and Africa these days. Fiberlink has 1Gbs for $30 a month in Lahore. PCTL is starting a 10Gb/s GPON trial in Islamabad. Single mode fibre based tech is much cheaper to deploy, and maintain than any legacy tech, and properly designed GPON net probably being the cheapest option ever.
- panny 6y ago
  >Japan too had 100mb/s since nineties for example, and theeeen..... they stuck. Speeds there not been rising by much since because regulations froze in nineties, and so did the market. https://hothardware.com/news/japanese-10-gbps-internet https://hothardware.com/news/japanese-10-gbps-internet You can get 1 Gbps service in Japanese farm towns.
- Tor3 6y ago
  I had (and still have, when I get back after Corona) fiber to the home in Japan. That fiber was installed some fifteen years ago, it was just a phone call away and then the fiber was hitched on the poles and into the house (everything goes on poles in Japan..). This is a nearly rural area by the way. Japan is not 'stuck' on 100Mbit - 1Gbit was only approximately 2-3 dollars more per month, compared to 100Mbit/s a few years ago.
  - anthk 6y ago
    >everything goes on poles in Japan..) Ah yes, the infamous wired mess in the Japanese media.
helloycombinat 6y ago
People keep talking about free market but from what I heard a city was not allowed to be an ISP or build their own network because of some state law the telecomms manage to pass. How is the market free when you have law interfering. There should be more regulations because you know companies will f around if there's nothing saying they can't There was a company (which had a few higher up's put in jail) that charged California a lot of $ for power outages and the state sued them back
eru 6y ago
Well, we agree that people are roughly equally greedy in different parts of the world; and that the difference are in how well the regulation works. There's not much free market in domestic internet in the US nor in Europe.
globular-toast 6y ago
The UK internet is worse because of forced competition. British Telecom started plans in the 1970s to roll out fibre optic connections to every household in the country. BT were even going to manufacture the fibre themselves. But the Thatcher government decided that competition was a good thing so shut that down and instead invited cable companies to lay competing infrastructure. A small handful of companies accepted the offer and proceeded to lay infrastructure during the 90s to compete with BT. They installed infrastructure only in highly lucrative towns and inner cities where cable runs are short and easy but subscriber counts are high. No rural infrastructure whatsoever. None of them have laid any infrastructure since the 90s and by now they have all merged into one company which has been rebranded as "Virgin Media". So much for competition. So what we have now is primarily a copper infrastructure with zero to two fibre backbones to choose from depending where you live. It's a shambles. The big mistake was not recognising that the physical infrastructure is a natural monopoly and, like any monopoly, should be state owned. Just like sewerage, electricity, water etc. it makes absolutely no sense to have parallel infrastructure. The UK shows that while it is possible, you make great sacrifices in the name of "competition" and "free market".

nichos 6y ago

Competition is the free market, not regulation. Europe is massively different than America in size.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago
No, not really. Europe is a little bigger. The countries are more like eastern states. [1] This is somewhat important, considering most of the regulation on utilities are at a state level - and the utilities kind of are as well. Some of the countries are somewhat populous - you know, like states - and some have a pretty sparse population. You know, like states. [1] https://www.tripsavvy.com/so-just-how-big-is-europe-compared-to-the-us-anyway-3971019#:~:text=In%20terms%20of%20landmass%2C%20the,closer%20together%20than%20western%20states https://www.tripsavvy.com/so-just-how-big-is-europe-compared...).

rayiner 6y ago

European Internet, according TFA, is for the most part not better. The largest country above us on the list has 17 million people. The big European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, which together comprise 70% of the EU) have slower Internet. The fastest country on the list, Denmark, has almost no competition in the sector: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Denmark. And it’s been a model of deregulation: https://reason.com/2017/10/24/how-denmark-has-overtaken-the-us-as-a-te/ https://reason.com/2017/10/24/how-denmark-has-overtaken-the-... > Regulators around the world took notice and strove to emulate the success of the U.S. approach. Denmark in particular styled its own telecommunications regulations on the U.S. model, slashing its chief telecom regulator altogether and assigning small regulatory functions to other departments. Denmark is basically the situation where you have a “benevolent former monopoly,” like Verizon here in the mid Atlantic US.

2stop 6y ago
Curious why population is even a factor here. If it legitimately should be... why not compare states of the US with states of the EU? (Seems a roughly equivalent thing to do)
- rayiner 6y ago
  Bigger and more diverse countries have a wider variety of political issues and priorities. When was the last time broadband even registered as a political issue in the news, except in the context of some other more important political debate (urban/rural, racial disparity, etc.) And in the US, construction of infrastructure is mostly a municipal level issue, so its both low priority and varies dramatically by state. Here in Maryland (which is a small, politically homogenous, rich state, just like Denmark), most of the state has fiber or gigabit cable and broadband speeds are very fast: https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/fastest-internet-connection-infographic/ https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/fastest-internet-connect... > In fact, the next state on the list, Maryland, is nearly tied with Denmark for the second-fastest Internet speed on Earth.
Semaphor 6y ago
In Germany, it’s a mix of politics and greed that made us the running joke wrt to internet quality.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  Neuland. It’s especially bad with mobile data caps. I had a 500mb cap in ~2014.
- baybal2 6y ago
  A weird notion I see is that "Countries who jumped on the Internet earlier can't have fiber because of existing competition" Fiber is actually MUCH, MUCH CHEAPER to deploy for higher speed networks than any high speed copper, because the later almost always implies to deploying a fibre network too to do everything other than the last mile.

baybal2 6y ago

Well, we can argue against that. It's best to say that both USA, and EU are very, very bureaucratised, and regulated. It's just one is marginally better at not introducing damaging regulations than the other. Japan too had 100mb/s since nineties for example, and theeeen..... they stuck. Speeds there not been rising by much since because regulations froze in nineties, and so did the market. Countries which had near zero telecommunication regulations covering the Internet, or had no Internet as such did advance more uniformly. I can have a 500mb/s over GPON, or even a symmetric gigabit over 1000BASE-LX even in *stan countries, and Africa these days. Fiberlink has 1Gbs for $30 a month in Lahore. PCTL is starting a 10Gb/s GPON trial in Islamabad. Single mode fibre based tech is much cheaper to deploy, and maintain than any legacy tech, and properly designed GPON net probably being the cheapest option ever.

panny 6y ago
>Japan too had 100mb/s since nineties for example, and theeeen..... they stuck. Speeds there not been rising by much since because regulations froze in nineties, and so did the market. https://hothardware.com/news/japanese-10-gbps-internet https://hothardware.com/news/japanese-10-gbps-internet You can get 1 Gbps service in Japanese farm towns.
Tor3 6y ago
I had (and still have, when I get back after Corona) fiber to the home in Japan. That fiber was installed some fifteen years ago, it was just a phone call away and then the fiber was hitched on the poles and into the house (everything goes on poles in Japan..). This is a nearly rural area by the way. Japan is not 'stuck' on 100Mbit - 1Gbit was only approximately 2-3 dollars more per month, compared to 100Mbit/s a few years ago.
- anthk 6y ago
  >everything goes on poles in Japan..) Ah yes, the infamous wired mess in the Japanese media.

helloycombinat 6y ago

People keep talking about free market but from what I heard a city was not allowed to be an ISP or build their own network because of some state law the telecomms manage to pass. How is the market free when you have law interfering. There should be more regulations because you know companies will f around if there's nothing saying they can't There was a company (which had a few higher up's put in jail) that charged California a lot of $ for power outages and the state sued them back

eru 6y ago

Well, we agree that people are roughly equally greedy in different parts of the world; and that the difference are in how well the regulation works. There's not much free market in domestic internet in the US nor in Europe.

globular-toast 6y ago

The UK internet is worse because of forced competition. British Telecom started plans in the 1970s to roll out fibre optic connections to every household in the country. BT were even going to manufacture the fibre themselves. But the Thatcher government decided that competition was a good thing so shut that down and instead invited cable companies to lay competing infrastructure. A small handful of companies accepted the offer and proceeded to lay infrastructure during the 90s to compete with BT. They installed infrastructure only in highly lucrative towns and inner cities where cable runs are short and easy but subscriber counts are high. No rural infrastructure whatsoever. None of them have laid any infrastructure since the 90s and by now they have all merged into one company which has been rebranded as "Virgin Media". So much for competition. So what we have now is primarily a copper infrastructure with zero to two fibre backbones to choose from depending where you live. It's a shambles. The big mistake was not recognising that the physical infrastructure is a natural monopoly and, like any monopoly, should be state owned. Just like sewerage, electricity, water etc. it makes absolutely no sense to have parallel infrastructure. The UK shows that while it is possible, you make great sacrifices in the name of "competition" and "free market".