4 ms·

> 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 avai

> 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.
    - mschuster91 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? Of course it is but Conservatives lack the ability (or the will, given their party donors) to think of the future. "Wer Visionen hat soll zum Arzt gehen"...
      - luckylion 6y ago
        > Of course it is but Conservatives lack the ability (or the will, given their party donors) to think of the future. "Wer Visionen hat soll zum Arzt gehen"... Schmidt was in SPD, not the CDU.
  - oblio 6y ago
    > 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. If Romania can do it, with much of the same restrictions in place, but a lot less money available, Germany for sure could do it.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      Romanian wages are way lower, easy as that. And they get lots of EU subsidies too.
      - oblio 6y ago
        Our EU funds absorption rate is pitiful, I'm not sure that's the main reason. The wages part might be true. But it's utterly shameful that's the case considering that we're talking about residential fiber, so high density places where that cost can be spread out easily. Because in rural areas for sure they can use equipment to dig.
mschuster91 6y ago
> The UK has similar average broadband speeds compared to e.g. Germany. German here, please don't use us as a basis to judge Europe! Our broadband is atrocious, dating back to a decision of then-Chancellor Kohl in the 80s - public antenna-broadcast TV was "too left wing" (=in reality, too critical of his Conservative government), so he scrapped the fibre rollout plan of his predecessor and directed all the funding to cable TV networks where private programs could be aired. And our mobile networks are atrocious because our red-green government in the early '00s was pressured by Conservatives to obtain a surplus budget ("Schwarze Null") so they extracted 50 billion € in license fees from the operators - money that they subsequently lacked building out the network. And a couple years past that, Merkel's Conservatives gained power - her most infamous line is "Das Internet ist Neuland" (Internet is a new area) in 2013 (!). I wish I was joking about all of this, we're a goddamn laughing stock. Hopefully we get rid of this bunch in September.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ehnto 6y ago
As much as internet access is a national infrastructure project, it does come down to the physical bits and bobs that connect your house to to the network. Sometimes you're just not on the right street for it, your house is old, the exchange is full, or your council/utility company don't want to foot the bill to tear up a road and replace old copper. The reasons are myriad.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Germany does poorly compared to the rest of the EU, so that's not an indicative comparison. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/02/uk-broadband-speeds-among-slowest-in-europe-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/02/uk-broadb...
- luckylion 6y ago
  Sure, my point is: if EU-membership was a deciding factor in availability of high speed broadband, as the OP implied, you'd see high speeds in Germany (and you would've seen a large drop in broadband speeds when the UK exited). It's obviously not, it's a national policy decision that countries make but has nothing to do with being a member of the EU or not.

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.
  - mschuster91 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? Of course it is but Conservatives lack the ability (or the will, given their party donors) to think of the future. "Wer Visionen hat soll zum Arzt gehen"...
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > Of course it is but Conservatives lack the ability (or the will, given their party donors) to think of the future. "Wer Visionen hat soll zum Arzt gehen"... Schmidt was in SPD, not the CDU.
- oblio 6y ago
  > 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. If Romania can do it, with much of the same restrictions in place, but a lot less money available, Germany for sure could do it.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    Romanian wages are way lower, easy as that. And they get lots of EU subsidies too.
    - oblio 6y ago
      Our EU funds absorption rate is pitiful, I'm not sure that's the main reason. The wages part might be true. But it's utterly shameful that's the case considering that we're talking about residential fiber, so high density places where that cost can be spread out easily. Because in rural areas for sure they can use equipment to dig.

mschuster91 6y ago

> The UK has similar average broadband speeds compared to e.g. Germany. German here, please don't use us as a basis to judge Europe! Our broadband is atrocious, dating back to a decision of then-Chancellor Kohl in the 80s - public antenna-broadcast TV was "too left wing" (=in reality, too critical of his Conservative government), so he scrapped the fibre rollout plan of his predecessor and directed all the funding to cable TV networks where private programs could be aired. And our mobile networks are atrocious because our red-green government in the early '00s was pressured by Conservatives to obtain a surplus budget ("Schwarze Null") so they extracted 50 billion € in license fees from the operators - money that they subsequently lacked building out the network. And a couple years past that, Merkel's Conservatives gained power - her most infamous line is "Das Internet ist Neuland" (Internet is a new area) in 2013 (!). I wish I was joking about all of this, we're a goddamn laughing stock. Hopefully we get rid of this bunch in September.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ehnto 6y ago

As much as internet access is a national infrastructure project, it does come down to the physical bits and bobs that connect your house to to the network. Sometimes you're just not on the right street for it, your house is old, the exchange is full, or your council/utility company don't want to foot the bill to tear up a road and replace old copper. The reasons are myriad.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

Germany does poorly compared to the rest of the EU, so that's not an indicative comparison. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/02/uk-broadband-speeds-among-slowest-in-europe-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/02/uk-broadb...

luckylion 6y ago
Sure, my point is: if EU-membership was a deciding factor in availability of high speed broadband, as the OP implied, you'd see high speeds in Germany (and you would've seen a large drop in broadband speeds when the UK exited). It's obviously not, it's a national policy decision that countries make but has nothing to do with being a member of the EU or not.