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>Broadband speeds, red tape – EU red tape force down broadband speeds, May 2016 I know all of these are nonsense, but this one is particularly funny to me. In

>Broadband speeds, red tape – EU red tape force down broadband speeds, May 2016 I know all of these are nonsense, but this one is particularly funny to me. In London I was limited to 80mbps copper cable, but since moving to a European city I now have gigabit fibre for around the same price (and 10 gigabit is available too for a small extra.)

carmen_sandiego 6y ago
Just depends where you live. Plenty of gigabit connections in London.
- eertami 6y ago
  London average fibre availability is 21%, sure that's better than nothing but I'm not sure I could say 1 in 5 is "plenty", especially compared to cities with >99% coverage. There's no reason for London's poor coverage rates except deliberate telecoms underfunding. London should also have >99% coverage by now, but instead we play catch up in the post-covid world while available bandwidth for many residents can not adequately sustain a family working from home and distance learning.
  - carmen_sandiego 6y ago
    There are other reasons. For example I think Kensington and Chelsea balked at the idea of having the on-street infra for some schemes. Same reason they don't have nice cycling infra. I'm surprised line-of-sight across the rooftops hasn't taken off yet. Seems like the density would make it worthwhile, but maybe there's some unseen factor at play.
- wdb 6y ago
  I only seem to get it via business gigabit connection but that is costly. I can't seem get it via consumer internet here in Zone 1 near Hyde Park. Max is ~70+. If Hyperoptic was available would be great but they seem to mostly to cover (new) apartment buildings. Having a Mews house is probably not helping
luckylion 6y ago
> In London I was limited to 80mbps copper cable, but since moving to a European city I now have gigabit fibre for around the same price (and 10 gigabit is available too for a small extra.) That's probably not because it's a "European city", but because it's a city in some specific European country. The UK has similar average broadband speeds compared to e.g. Germany.
- foepys 6y ago
  Germany is hilariously behind other EU nations in regards to internet access and connection speed. After plans for FTTH got scrapped in 1983 (!!) Germany is still using copper telephone lines for the vast majority of its internet users. While fiber is slowing being deployed there are still voices that oppose it because it's "too expensive". There are still entire industry areas connected over a single 50/10 MBit DSL connection. A company I applied to a few years ago was very proud to tell me that they had just had upgraded their connection from 3/0.3 MBit to 16/1 MBit. This company had 70 employees at that time and was located at the outskirts of a city with >300.000 citizens.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > While fiber is slowing being deployed there are still voices that oppose it because it's "too expensive". Former trench digger as a sub for the Telekom here. It is extremely expensive to build out fibre trenches - rural areas simply because of the vast distances and the comparatively few users and urban areas because the underground area is filled meaning you can't use excavators below 20cm depth and have to do everything by hand. For the US people asking "why don't go aboveground" - The US way of laying cable aboveground doesn't fly here... in rural areas you don't want to have car crashes take down service lines, and in urban areas cable poles are seen as eyesore.
    - foepys 6y ago
      The question is: is it more expensive than getting lapped by other countries because the industry cannot keep up in regards to digitalization (also known under the marketing phrase "industry 4.0")? It's incredibly sad to still have to look up how internet connectivity is going to be when you move. In a high-tech nation as Germany, I should be able to expect a fast internet connection in every house to be able to work from home. Especially because plans for FTTH were made in 1981 and got scrapped only because of corruption.

carmen_sandiego 6y ago

Just depends where you live. Plenty of gigabit connections in London.

eertami 6y ago
London average fibre availability is 21%, sure that's better than nothing but I'm not sure I could say 1 in 5 is "plenty", especially compared to cities with >99% coverage. There's no reason for London's poor coverage rates except deliberate telecoms underfunding. London should also have >99% coverage by now, but instead we play catch up in the post-covid world while available bandwidth for many residents can not adequately sustain a family working from home and distance learning.
- carmen_sandiego 6y ago
  There are other reasons. For example I think Kensington and Chelsea balked at the idea of having the on-street infra for some schemes. Same reason they don't have nice cycling infra. I'm surprised line-of-sight across the rooftops hasn't taken off yet. Seems like the density would make it worthwhile, but maybe there's some unseen factor at play.
wdb 6y ago
I only seem to get it via business gigabit connection but that is costly. I can't seem get it via consumer internet here in Zone 1 near Hyde Park. Max is ~70+. If Hyperoptic was available would be great but they seem to mostly to cover (new) apartment buildings. Having a Mews house is probably not helping

luckylion 6y ago

> In London I was limited to 80mbps copper cable, but since moving to a European city I now have gigabit fibre for around the same price (and 10 gigabit is available too for a small extra.) That's probably not because it's a "European city", but because it's a city in some specific European country. The UK has similar average broadband speeds compared to e.g. Germany.

foepys 6y ago
Germany is hilariously behind other EU nations in regards to internet access and connection speed. After plans for FTTH got scrapped in 1983 (!!) Germany is still using copper telephone lines for the vast majority of its internet users. While fiber is slowing being deployed there are still voices that oppose it because it's "too expensive". There are still entire industry areas connected over a single 50/10 MBit DSL connection. A company I applied to a few years ago was very proud to tell me that they had just had upgraded their connection from 3/0.3 MBit to 16/1 MBit. This company had 70 employees at that time and was located at the outskirts of a city with >300.000 citizens.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > While fiber is slowing being deployed there are still voices that oppose it because it's "too expensive". Former trench digger as a sub for the Telekom here. It is extremely expensive to build out fibre trenches - rural areas simply because of the vast distances and the comparatively few users and urban areas because the underground area is filled meaning you can't use excavators below 20cm depth and have to do everything by hand. For the US people asking "why don't go aboveground" - The US way of laying cable aboveground doesn't fly here... in rural areas you don't want to have car crashes take down service lines, and in urban areas cable poles are seen as eyesore.
  - foepys 6y ago
    The question is: is it more expensive than getting lapped by other countries because the industry cannot keep up in regards to digitalization (also known under the marketing phrase "industry 4.0")? It's incredibly sad to still have to look up how internet connectivity is going to be when you move. In a high-tech nation as Germany, I should be able to expect a fast internet connection in every house to be able to work from home. Especially because plans for FTTH were made in 1981 and got scrapped only because of corruption.