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Claiming that America has slow connections compared to Europe without acknowledging the obvious differences in infrastructure cost is ridiculous. Europe is way

Claiming that America has slow connections compared to Europe without acknowledging the obvious differences in infrastructure cost is ridiculous. Europe is way more dense than America, just look at any light pollution map and compare. Europe has also a LOT of previously built roads that make deployments way cheaper. Once you take that into account, the ISP market in the US is not that dysfunctional, it’s just that economies of scale matter too much.

iptrans 5y ago
This appeal to American exceptionalism does not stand up to scrutiny. A lot of European countries have far lower population densities that the US, but still better infrastructure and broadband. The US just is that dysfunctional.
- xondono 5y ago
  Some places in europe have lower population densities because of low population, not because of massive distances. The problem in the US is that distances are way longer.
  - iptrans 5y ago
    The US has a well developed and competitive national backbone market. When building networks the geographical extremities of the nation do not matter, only the distance to the closest point of presence. Europe and the US are not that dissimilar in geographical extent or population density, so neither of these can be used as convincing arguments for American exceptionalism. The fact remains that the US is just that dysfunctional compared to Europe.
undfg 5y ago
It's really funny to read "I live in the middle of no fucking where and I all I have is a shitty DSL. Why won't the ISP pay $100k to deploy a cable just for me?" They think it's any better in Europe? In the places where it is better it's because the government has given the isps a lot of money. Money that would be much better spent elsewhere, as I believe if you want good services you have to move to the cities - you shouldn't ask the rest of the country to subsidise your lifestyle.
- anonymoushn 5y ago
  Lots of people live in cities in the US and only have a shitty DSL.
  - rhino369 5y ago
    Every single AirBnB I’ve stayed at in Europe has shitty DSL too.
- bserge 5y ago
  Look at Romania. It is pretty similar to the US in density and number of small towns per capita I believe, and ISPs deliver fiber to shitty little towns with 5000 people for the same price as in the city. Somehow the United States can't do that? Then look at Germany, they're squeezing up to 300 Mbps out of copper (really impressive tbh, but it's no fiber) and 4G is atrocious. The UK fairs much better in both. Spain seems to be quietly ahead of both in fiber. It's all about people and politics, not technology or distance when it comes to good Internet.
- Bayart 5y ago
  The reverse argument makes as much, if not more, sense : rents in cities are far too high, the economy is too concentrated and it has negative side effects on quality of life, health, political stability, wealth disparity and growth. Deploying more infrastructure to cheaper areas and insentivizing decentralization helps solving that.
adventured 5y ago
It's also worth pointing out that the US has faster Internet speeds than France, Germany, Spain or Italy. That has been true for at least 20 years running at this point. The two largest economies in Europe have always had inferior Internet speeds to the US. France in particular has spent decades as a badly lagging second class Internet citizen on speeds. As recently as four years ago France was one of the absolute worst places in the affluent world for Internet speeds, while the US has routinely ranked near the top dozen affluent nations (competing mostly with far smaller nations, with far greater population density concentrated in a few major cities, such as Switzerland or Norway in the case of Europe).
bserge 5y ago
This argument every single time. If you take into account people, high pop density is a downside. Laying fiber from one town to another you have to go through hundreds of private properties.
- rhino369 5y ago
  The cost of fiber from town to town is a small part of the cost. And it’s already done for the most part. That isn’t what is holding up fiber deployments to residential houses.
rhino369 5y ago
Canada and Australia have the same issues as the us. It’s mostly a geography issue. I’ve also never seen convincing evidence that US is really worse on average than other large countries— Germany, France, Italy, Spain. All the speed test rankings place us around the same. When you consider pricing—you need to consider average income. ISP costs are mostly tied to local wages. So you can’t compare US prices to Romania.
washadjeffmad 5y ago
ISPs and carriers in the US have no problem deploying 5G nationwide. If only the first strand is expensive in a fiber deployment, why duplicate work by not installing residential fiber at the same time? Also in the US, the availability of high speed, low cost fiber options versus slow, expensive copper can be accurately guessed based on nothing but the median home price in a neighborhood. When fully occupied apartment buildings lack fiber but not the townhomes across the street, "population density" is not a satisfactory explanation.
- iptrans 5y ago
  > If only the first strand is expensive in a fiber deployment, why duplicate work by not installing residential fiber at the same time? Because 5G is expected to be more profitable than fiber and deploying fiber would require more CAPEX.

iptrans 5y ago

This appeal to American exceptionalism does not stand up to scrutiny. A lot of European countries have far lower population densities that the US, but still better infrastructure and broadband. The US just is that dysfunctional.

xondono 5y ago
Some places in europe have lower population densities because of low population, not because of massive distances. The problem in the US is that distances are way longer.
- iptrans 5y ago
  The US has a well developed and competitive national backbone market. When building networks the geographical extremities of the nation do not matter, only the distance to the closest point of presence. Europe and the US are not that dissimilar in geographical extent or population density, so neither of these can be used as convincing arguments for American exceptionalism. The fact remains that the US is just that dysfunctional compared to Europe.

undfg 5y ago

It's really funny to read "I live in the middle of no fucking where and I all I have is a shitty DSL. Why won't the ISP pay $100k to deploy a cable just for me?" They think it's any better in Europe? In the places where it is better it's because the government has given the isps a lot of money. Money that would be much better spent elsewhere, as I believe if you want good services you have to move to the cities - you shouldn't ask the rest of the country to subsidise your lifestyle.

anonymoushn 5y ago
Lots of people live in cities in the US and only have a shitty DSL.
- rhino369 5y ago
  Every single AirBnB I’ve stayed at in Europe has shitty DSL too.
bserge 5y ago
Look at Romania. It is pretty similar to the US in density and number of small towns per capita I believe, and ISPs deliver fiber to shitty little towns with 5000 people for the same price as in the city. Somehow the United States can't do that? Then look at Germany, they're squeezing up to 300 Mbps out of copper (really impressive tbh, but it's no fiber) and 4G is atrocious. The UK fairs much better in both. Spain seems to be quietly ahead of both in fiber. It's all about people and politics, not technology or distance when it comes to good Internet.
Bayart 5y ago
The reverse argument makes as much, if not more, sense : rents in cities are far too high, the economy is too concentrated and it has negative side effects on quality of life, health, political stability, wealth disparity and growth. Deploying more infrastructure to cheaper areas and insentivizing decentralization helps solving that.

adventured 5y ago

It's also worth pointing out that the US has faster Internet speeds than France, Germany, Spain or Italy. That has been true for at least 20 years running at this point. The two largest economies in Europe have always had inferior Internet speeds to the US. France in particular has spent decades as a badly lagging second class Internet citizen on speeds. As recently as four years ago France was one of the absolute worst places in the affluent world for Internet speeds, while the US has routinely ranked near the top dozen affluent nations (competing mostly with far smaller nations, with far greater population density concentrated in a few major cities, such as Switzerland or Norway in the case of Europe).

bserge 5y ago

This argument every single time. If you take into account people, high pop density is a downside. Laying fiber from one town to another you have to go through hundreds of private properties.

rhino369 5y ago
The cost of fiber from town to town is a small part of the cost. And it’s already done for the most part. That isn’t what is holding up fiber deployments to residential houses.

rhino369 5y ago

Canada and Australia have the same issues as the us. It’s mostly a geography issue. I’ve also never seen convincing evidence that US is really worse on average than other large countries— Germany, France, Italy, Spain. All the speed test rankings place us around the same. When you consider pricing—you need to consider average income. ISP costs are mostly tied to local wages. So you can’t compare US prices to Romania.

washadjeffmad 5y ago

ISPs and carriers in the US have no problem deploying 5G nationwide. If only the first strand is expensive in a fiber deployment, why duplicate work by not installing residential fiber at the same time? Also in the US, the availability of high speed, low cost fiber options versus slow, expensive copper can be accurately guessed based on nothing but the median home price in a neighborhood. When fully occupied apartment buildings lack fiber but not the townhomes across the street, "population density" is not a satisfactory explanation.

iptrans 5y ago
> If only the first strand is expensive in a fiber deployment, why duplicate work by not installing residential fiber at the same time? Because 5G is expected to be more profitable than fiber and deploying fiber would require more CAPEX.