4 ms·

Ask HN: Affordable places in the world with 10G unmetered fiber home Internet?

20 points by lostmsu 5y ago

Asking for a friend ;) If you live in a city, please also narrow down the area.

toast0 5y ago
Can you sleep standing up? In a 42U server rack?
- lostmsu 5y ago
  I guess the joke's on us living in US. As it turned out a few places provide 10Gbps without the need to live in a data center.
  - toast0 5y ago
    Sure, but I bet those people aren't getting access to multiple transit providers in a carrier neutral facility, and they're going to have a hard time getting a BGP session or even justifying their ASN application. Where are their priorities?
throwawaynay 5y ago
Romania
Moldoteck 5y ago
Romania: https://www.digi.ro/anunturi/digi-lanseaza-internetul-de-10-gbps-fiberlink-10-g-cel-mai-rapid-internet-din-romania-29465 https://www.digi.ro/anunturi/digi-lanseaza-internetul-de-10-...
beardedetim 5y ago
I think Chattanooga, TN has 10g but not sure how expensive it is or how to get it. Chatt itself is pretty cheap in comparison to something like Nashville or bigger cities.
- theandrewbailey 5y ago
  $300 per month. https://epb.com/fi-speed-internet/ https://epb.com/fi-speed-internet/
  - davidandgoliath 5y ago
    Lovely area too. 37377 is a excellent zip code here for families.
z_zetetic_z 5y ago
Switzerland. ~50 USD / month. Includes TV on demand with replay etc, and hardware. https://fiber.salt.ch/en/home/internet https://fiber.salt.ch/en/home/internet It is possible also to get 25G for the same monthly rate, but you need your own hardware. https://www.init7.net/en/ https://www.init7.net/en/
- Matthias247 5y ago
  It's surprising to see Switzerland coming up here, as its being among the most expensive places in europe. Pretty much every other european country will be more affordable.
  - z_zetetic_z 5y ago
    Switzerland is indeed extremely expensive for most things, but consumer technology is actually OK here. A low sales tax of ~8% actually makes some products made in China cheaper here that in Germany. Oh, and a lot things like infrastructure actually work out cheaper because of the massive investment sunk in up front. It is a case of spending more now, to save more in the long run.
  - bald 5y ago
    also mobile plans are cheap in Switzerland. You can get a plan including unlimited calls throughout most of Europe+Canada+US (incl. roaming) plus unlimited 5G in Switzerland plus 40GB of data roaming throughout Europe (not only EU)+Canada+US for 35-45 CHF/month. These are sales that happen 3-4 times a year, e.g. via qoqa.ch or on wingo.ch. I have two of those from two different providers. Regular prices for such plans are CHF 100-130, which I also do not find overly expensive compared to US.
  - cupcakesupreme 5y ago
    In Switzerland, it is forbidden to be poor and it is forbidden to be foreign. That's from one of John le Carré‘s books. Not verbatim. I think it was The Perfect Spy.
sonofaragorn 5y ago
https://nomadlist.com/places-on-a-budget-with-fast-internet https://nomadlist.com/places-on-a-budget-with-fast-internet
- lostmsu 5y ago
  They define 10Mbps as "fast".
  - sonofaragorn 5y ago
    Good point. I would define that as slow lol
eddyb 5y ago
I live in Bucharest, Romania and I pay $9/mo for 1Gbps FTTH (fiber into my flat, with an ISP-provided fiber terminal). This offering is available from digi.ro pretty much throughout most major cities (so city area doesn't matter unless you go outside, into suburbs and villages - not sure how far the fiber penetration reaches). They announced 10Gbps a few months ago, for only a 25% price increase (someone else linked the announcement already) - but I'm still on the waiting list, and I'm not sure what their deployment progress is like. I wish I could offer real numbers for 10Gbps - for 1Gbps I remember getting: * >900Mbps download locally (P2P, fast.com, etc.) * 300-500Mbps both directions, across Europe (e.g. to Hetzner servers) * not sure about intercontinental, but I suspect latency could be more of a problem there, depending on your usecase (Frankly, consumer networking equipment has been getting in the way of reliably maxing out what the ISP offers, in a multi-device environment, and I've been procrastinating getting more professional hardware since the difference is mostly only visible when measuring it explicitly) As for affordability: you can live here decently for around $1k/mo, maybe a bit more depending on rent, so if you have an international source of income (or a good chunk of savings), you could easily spend years here. (Most of my monthly costs go towards food, and I don't have good points of reference for that - I can't remember what it was called, but there was at least one website for breakdowns of living costs in various parts of the world) One downside is you may need to learn a bit of the language, depending on how much you need to interact with the average person that might not know any English (but this has gotten easier with e.g. using delivery during lockdowns). OTOH, English has been permeating a lot more, starting with millennials, so you could get lucky. Have fun! (though realistically there are likely more convenient options)
- 999900000999 5y ago
  How hard is it to get a visa ? 1k a month isn't bad at all. I imagine if I had a million dollar saved up in 10 years, I could just move there. And then live forever off my investments, plus as you've already mentioned, many younger people know some English. I'm guessing for an American Eastern Europe would be less of a culture shock than say Thailand
  - MathYouF 5y ago
blacha 5y ago
New Zealand has 8G/8G to some homes within bigish cities for around $270nzd/mo (~180usd/mo)[1] and most of the population has access to at least 1000up/500down fibre for about $100nzd/mo (~65usd/mo). It how ever is not the cheapest country in the world, so it somewhat depends on your definition of affordable [1] https://www.orcon.net.nz/hyperfibre/ https://www.orcon.net.nz/hyperfibre/
srvmshr 5y ago
Japan's NTT Hikari runs on fiberoptic backbone. 10Gbps at $40 per month (3 year contract)
triacus 5y ago
Hungary: https://digi.hu/en/news/three-years-development-works-completed https://digi.hu/en/news/three-years-development-works-comple... https://digi.hu/hirek/bemutatja-10-gbits-savszelessegu-lakossagi-szolgaltatasat-digi https://digi.hu/hirek/bemutatja-10-gbits-savszelessegu-lakos... for 14 €, at the moment only in Budapest.
davidandgoliath 5y ago
Chattanooga area.
karmakaze 5y ago
What do people do with all this bandwidth? Sometimes a git clone can take a little while. Streaming a 4k movie is about 0.02 Gbps. Latency matters for gaming but what else? I suppose you could do things that normally wouldn't make sense like having a fully cloud remote development environment. I tried out RubyMine's Remote Development (beta) and I thought "who could possibly use this with the entire JVM of the IDE running in the cloud with only the graphics displayed locally?" I think I found the crowd.
- randomopining 5y ago
  I think it's just a measuring contest. 99.9999% of people have no use for anything over like 300mbps (multiple 4k streams while gaming). Ok maybe like a photo/vid backup once a year or something would be nice on the 25Gbps.
pesoneto 5y ago
Sumo Fiber in Utah offers 10G for around $200 a month. https://sumofiber.com/internet/utah/ https://sumofiber.com/internet/utah/
Komodai 5y ago
Bahnhof offers 10G here in Sweden, not sure whereabouts though (other than Stockholm, needs a House) for less than $50-70/mo as far as I know.

20 points by lostmsu 5y ago

Asking for a friend ;) If you live in a city, please also narrow down the area.

toast0 5y ago

Can you sleep standing up? In a 42U server rack?

lostmsu 5y ago
I guess the joke's on us living in US. As it turned out a few places provide 10Gbps without the need to live in a data center.
- toast0 5y ago
  Sure, but I bet those people aren't getting access to multiple transit providers in a carrier neutral facility, and they're going to have a hard time getting a BGP session or even justifying their ASN application. Where are their priorities?

throwawaynay 5y ago

Romania

Moldoteck 5y ago

Romania: https://www.digi.ro/anunturi/digi-lanseaza-internetul-de-10-gbps-fiberlink-10-g-cel-mai-rapid-internet-din-romania-29465 https://www.digi.ro/anunturi/digi-lanseaza-internetul-de-10-...

beardedetim 5y ago

I think Chattanooga, TN has 10g but not sure how expensive it is or how to get it. Chatt itself is pretty cheap in comparison to something like Nashville or bigger cities.

theandrewbailey 5y ago
$300 per month. https://epb.com/fi-speed-internet/ https://epb.com/fi-speed-internet/
- davidandgoliath 5y ago
  Lovely area too. 37377 is a excellent zip code here for families.

z_zetetic_z 5y ago

Switzerland. ~50 USD / month. Includes TV on demand with replay etc, and hardware. https://fiber.salt.ch/en/home/internet https://fiber.salt.ch/en/home/internet It is possible also to get 25G for the same monthly rate, but you need your own hardware. https://www.init7.net/en/ https://www.init7.net/en/

Matthias247 5y ago
It's surprising to see Switzerland coming up here, as its being among the most expensive places in europe. Pretty much every other european country will be more affordable.
- z_zetetic_z 5y ago
  Switzerland is indeed extremely expensive for most things, but consumer technology is actually OK here. A low sales tax of ~8% actually makes some products made in China cheaper here that in Germany. Oh, and a lot things like infrastructure actually work out cheaper because of the massive investment sunk in up front. It is a case of spending more now, to save more in the long run.
- bald 5y ago
  also mobile plans are cheap in Switzerland. You can get a plan including unlimited calls throughout most of Europe+Canada+US (incl. roaming) plus unlimited 5G in Switzerland plus 40GB of data roaming throughout Europe (not only EU)+Canada+US for 35-45 CHF/month. These are sales that happen 3-4 times a year, e.g. via qoqa.ch or on wingo.ch. I have two of those from two different providers. Regular prices for such plans are CHF 100-130, which I also do not find overly expensive compared to US.
- cupcakesupreme 5y ago
  In Switzerland, it is forbidden to be poor and it is forbidden to be foreign. That's from one of John le Carré‘s books. Not verbatim. I think it was The Perfect Spy.

sonofaragorn 5y ago

https://nomadlist.com/places-on-a-budget-with-fast-internet https://nomadlist.com/places-on-a-budget-with-fast-internet

lostmsu 5y ago
They define 10Mbps as "fast".
- sonofaragorn 5y ago
  Good point. I would define that as slow lol

eddyb 5y ago

I live in Bucharest, Romania and I pay $9/mo for 1Gbps FTTH (fiber into my flat, with an ISP-provided fiber terminal). This offering is available from digi.ro pretty much throughout most major cities (so city area doesn't matter unless you go outside, into suburbs and villages - not sure how far the fiber penetration reaches). They announced 10Gbps a few months ago, for only a 25% price increase (someone else linked the announcement already) - but I'm still on the waiting list, and I'm not sure what their deployment progress is like. I wish I could offer real numbers for 10Gbps - for 1Gbps I remember getting: * >900Mbps download locally (P2P, fast.com, etc.) * 300-500Mbps both directions, across Europe (e.g. to Hetzner servers) * not sure about intercontinental, but I suspect latency could be more of a problem there, depending on your usecase (Frankly, consumer networking equipment has been getting in the way of reliably maxing out what the ISP offers, in a multi-device environment, and I've been procrastinating getting more professional hardware since the difference is mostly only visible when measuring it explicitly) As for affordability: you can live here decently for around $1k/mo, maybe a bit more depending on rent, so if you have an international source of income (or a good chunk of savings), you could easily spend years here. (Most of my monthly costs go towards food, and I don't have good points of reference for that - I can't remember what it was called, but there was at least one website for breakdowns of living costs in various parts of the world) One downside is you may need to learn a bit of the language, depending on how much you need to interact with the average person that might not know any English (but this has gotten easier with e.g. using delivery during lockdowns). OTOH, English has been permeating a lot more, starting with millennials, so you could get lucky. Have fun! (though realistically there are likely more convenient options)

999900000999 5y ago
How hard is it to get a visa ? 1k a month isn't bad at all. I imagine if I had a million dollar saved up in 10 years, I could just move there. And then live forever off my investments, plus as you've already mentioned, many younger people know some English. I'm guessing for an American Eastern Europe would be less of a culture shock than say Thailand
- MathYouF 5y ago

blacha 5y ago

New Zealand has 8G/8G to some homes within bigish cities for around $270nzd/mo (~180usd/mo)[1] and most of the population has access to at least 1000up/500down fibre for about $100nzd/mo (~65usd/mo). It how ever is not the cheapest country in the world, so it somewhat depends on your definition of affordable [1] https://www.orcon.net.nz/hyperfibre/ https://www.orcon.net.nz/hyperfibre/

srvmshr 5y ago

Japan's NTT Hikari runs on fiberoptic backbone. 10Gbps at $40 per month (3 year contract)

triacus 5y ago

Hungary: https://digi.hu/en/news/three-years-development-works-completed https://digi.hu/en/news/three-years-development-works-comple... https://digi.hu/hirek/bemutatja-10-gbits-savszelessegu-lakossagi-szolgaltatasat-digi https://digi.hu/hirek/bemutatja-10-gbits-savszelessegu-lakos... for 14 €, at the moment only in Budapest.

davidandgoliath 5y ago

Chattanooga area.

karmakaze 5y ago

What do people do with all this bandwidth? Sometimes a git clone can take a little while. Streaming a 4k movie is about 0.02 Gbps. Latency matters for gaming but what else? I suppose you could do things that normally wouldn't make sense like having a fully cloud remote development environment. I tried out RubyMine's Remote Development (beta) and I thought "who could possibly use this with the entire JVM of the IDE running in the cloud with only the graphics displayed locally?" I think I found the crowd.

randomopining 5y ago
I think it's just a measuring contest. 99.9999% of people have no use for anything over like 300mbps (multiple 4k streams while gaming). Ok maybe like a photo/vid backup once a year or something would be nice on the 25Gbps.

pesoneto 5y ago

Sumo Fiber in Utah offers 10G for around $200 a month. https://sumofiber.com/internet/utah/ https://sumofiber.com/internet/utah/

Komodai 5y ago

Bahnhof offers 10G here in Sweden, not sure whereabouts though (other than Stockholm, needs a House) for less than $50-70/mo as far as I know.