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Spain is at 96.79% (June 2025), up from 94.79% a year before. See [0] I think France and Spain are the best of the big European countries regarding coverage, b

by nsbk 1mo ago

Spain is at 96.79% (June 2025), up from 94.79% a year before. See [0] I think France and Spain are the best of the big European countries regarding coverage, but also adoption: If we look at the adoption ranking globally, Spain sits fourth at 90%, behind the UAE, China and South Korea and ahead of France at 83.6%. Very few European countries convert coverage into subscriptions that efficiently, and I think it's driven by competition. You can get 500Mb symmetric connection for as little 10 euro [1], 20 for 2Gbps. DIGI has just gone crazy and in their own network they are offering symmetric 10Gbps for 25. Most people I know have 1Gbps because when is that not enough? [0]: https://digital.gob.es/en/telecomunicaciones-infraestructuras-digitales/areas-interes/banda-ancha/informacion-cobertura https://digital.gob.es/en/telecomunicaciones-infraestructura... [1]: https://www.digimobil.es/fibra-optica/ https://www.digimobil.es/fibra-optica/

alerighi 1mo ago
In Italy we are at 78% of addresses covered. That doesn't mean automatically that one gets fiber. First at all, if someone doesn't need to download heavy stuff and has a good coverage a 5G SIM with unlimited data (something you can get for 10/15 euros a month) is cheaper than a fiber connection (that starts from 25 euros). Second a lot of people has still FTTC even if it has FTTH, mostly because FTTC offers a speed that is enough for most people (100Mbit/s) and upgrading may have costs (the installation of the fiber is at the expense of the ISP, but if you need to make modifications, such as put a pipe from your house to the street in which they will put the fiber, it's at your expense). In some cases even if fiber is present it's difficult/not possible to get it into your house (for example you live in a condo and the other tenants doesn't want to spend money to make the modifications that are needed to pass the wires). In any case they have started to switch off copper (since it costs money to maintain an infrastructure that has decades), so either way customers will be forced to move to fiber or 5G network in the upcoming years. In any case a fault on a copper line is likely not to be repaired...
- epistasis 1mo ago
  > a 5G SIM with unlimited data (something you can get for 10/15 euros a month) is cheaper than a fiber connection (that starts from 25 euros). These sorts of prices are unheard of in the US, so incredibly low. Something has gone deeply wrong with US telecommunications.
  - richwater 1mo ago
    State sanctioned and encouraged anti trust behavior will do that
  - manacit 1mo ago
    You can use any one of many MVNOs to get unlimited data for around that price, say less adjusted for household income, in the USA. A favorite of mine is https://www.usmobile.com/ https://www.usmobile.com/ which is $25/mo list price (and less if you pay for the year, or if they're having a sale) which will give you Unlimited Data and 1GB a month of global roaming data If you pay $45 you can get unlimited data from Mint for $15/mo: https://www.mintmobile.com/plans/ https://www.mintmobile.com/plans/ It's not unheard of! It's actually the high speed internet at home that is less competitive - the prices in Europe are unheard of.
    - jorvi 1mo ago
      Only some places. Netherlands is €45-60 for 1 gbps (we don't make 4x-6x the money Spaniards do), unless you live in an area that actually sees multi-line competition. We do have an interesting sidegrade: 5G Klik & Klaar from Odido (formerly T-Mobile / Deutsche Telekom) for €26. If you point it the right way out your window, you can get 700-1000 mbps down and 150 (capped) mbps up. Ping is around 35ms. Horrid modem firmware though, you get ping spikes up to 400-850ms (!!) under load due to bufferbloat, but you can of course solve that with your own router and SQM :+)
      - reillyse 1mo ago
        Is this line of site to a very high mast? Enabled because the Netherlands is so flat?
- hocuspocus 1mo ago
  The main issue with copper comes from the active infrastructure rather than the physical lines. I work at an ISP that gets DSLAM equipment from Huawei, we run one of the few G.fast VDSL deployments in the world using this particular hardware. Huawei has stopped manufacturing this product line (the Swiss market is a rounding error ;), which will force us to fully migrate some neighborhoods, only for backup inventory. Germany being 15 years late, I assume you can still buy similar hardware from AVM though.
- sph 1mo ago
  > In Italy we are at 78% of addresses covered > UK is at 85% FTTH [on a sibling comment] Meanwhile I have 1 Gb/s FTTH in an Italian village of less than 100 souls, while I couldn’t reach 300 Mbit/s on copper in London zone 4. I have been surprised at how well they have improved the situation in Italy, and in dismay at how terrible it is in UK.
  - sonar_un 1mo ago
    The UK is absolutely terrible. I've noticed this quite a bit in my travels there.
  - Symbiote 1mo ago
    Average speeds are higher in the UK than Italy. My brother in the UK has 1Gb/s fibre in a village of less than 100. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_...
    - sph 1mo ago
      Well I guess I must have been unlucky in 13 years in 5 flats around London with an average broadband speed of ~150 Mb/s
      - Nekobai 1mo ago
        No, you're totally right. I'm currently in Zone 4, maximum _theoretical_ speed is 67 Mbps.
      - Symbiote 1mo ago
        Clearly, yes. Unless you're claiming your personal experience invalidates a long running, well regarded statistical analysis.
  - rsynnott 1mo ago
    It’s not uncommon for cities to be worse than rural areas now. In Ireland, nearly all rural premises have 10gbit-capable fibre available (will be literally all by early next year) but parts of central Dublin are stuck with VDSL. Retrofitting in cities can be quite slow and expensive.
- thefz 1mo ago
  > In Italy we are at 78% of addresses covered Complete bullshit. BUL maybe is close to that percentage P1G is nowhere near and is never going to reach full coverage in 2030.
- sonar_un 1mo ago
  I am in Italy right now, in fact, spent a lot of time here. I can safely say, the 5G sim coverage is extremely spotty, and when you can get internet from a physical line, it's generally pretty poor speeds. I am pretty sure a lot of that 78% includes 1 bar of LTE coverage, so it's "technically" true.
- _mpn_ 1mo ago
  Because deploying fiber is so hard in NYC, I use Calyx Institute (https://calyxinstitute.org/membership https://calyxinstitute.org/membership) on a MikroTik Chateau 5G R16. Calyx uses T-Mobile towers. I use the internet via L2TP to a VPS to give me a static IPv4 and IPv6 /56 block. This is only for upload speeds. I get 45-80 Mbps uploads. I used Spectrum for four months but because of my L2TP setup, DOCSIS ACK suppression doesn't work; it's TCP inside L2TP UDP and then ACKs are then sent over the wire. This meant sluggish internet under load. Spectrum did install a high-split amp but it's still not turned on afaict. Row townhouses in Brooklyn and Queens have Fios, but not in Manhattan. I wish I could just do a NYT ad but that'd force me to liquidate a decent chunk of my E*Trade and J.P. Morgan accounts. I am right now visiting Belgium and I saw multiple towns, including historic neighborhoods with Proximus fiber splitters: Brussels, Antwerpe, Ghent and Bruges. The fiber and Telenet Coax is so well organized when compared to NYC's coax mess. However, where Fios is available, Verizon does an okay job with organizing fiber. Verizon said killing line sharing would bring more fiber. Yet Proximus built fiber in historic cities more than Verizon did. I don't believe Orange France legally has to share fiber, but in return Orange can't block Free/SFR with payola deals.
- juliendorra 1mo ago
  Several of the issues you point have been solved in France via regulations (on the ISP and on the tenants of condos). It tools several years, even decades, but we ended up with fiber regulations that are good (could have been better and faster).
gigel82 1mo ago
Damn, we pay $110 for 5Gbps in Seattle only because the 2Gbps would be $100. Cellular plans are also a lot cheaper in Europe :(
- domh 1mo ago
  I pay £6 per month for a sim only contract, which gives me 4GB of data. In the USA I feel like I was paying closer to $40-50 for a google fi sim? Which admittedly did have better roaming. Now I just get an e-sim for travel and it works out to be £3ish per day
martinald 1mo ago
UK is at 85% FTTH or 91% gigabit (including DOCSIS): https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/ https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/. Given VM are a fair way through their XGS-PON upgrade it'll probably be 90%+ FTTH imminently.
telesilla 1mo ago
I spent time in the interior of Portugal that had fibre internet, it was very impressive and incredibly helpful to the village. Better payment services and banking for example.

by nsbk 1mo ago

alerighi 1mo ago

In Italy we are at 78% of addresses covered. That doesn't mean automatically that one gets fiber. First at all, if someone doesn't need to download heavy stuff and has a good coverage a 5G SIM with unlimited data (something you can get for 10/15 euros a month) is cheaper than a fiber connection (that starts from 25 euros). Second a lot of people has still FTTC even if it has FTTH, mostly because FTTC offers a speed that is enough for most people (100Mbit/s) and upgrading may have costs (the installation of the fiber is at the expense of the ISP, but if you need to make modifications, such as put a pipe from your house to the street in which they will put the fiber, it's at your expense). In some cases even if fiber is present it's difficult/not possible to get it into your house (for example you live in a condo and the other tenants doesn't want to spend money to make the modifications that are needed to pass the wires). In any case they have started to switch off copper (since it costs money to maintain an infrastructure that has decades), so either way customers will be forced to move to fiber or 5G network in the upcoming years. In any case a fault on a copper line is likely not to be repaired...

epistasis 1mo ago
> a 5G SIM with unlimited data (something you can get for 10/15 euros a month) is cheaper than a fiber connection (that starts from 25 euros). These sorts of prices are unheard of in the US, so incredibly low. Something has gone deeply wrong with US telecommunications.
- richwater 1mo ago
  State sanctioned and encouraged anti trust behavior will do that
- manacit 1mo ago
  You can use any one of many MVNOs to get unlimited data for around that price, say less adjusted for household income, in the USA. A favorite of mine is https://www.usmobile.com/ https://www.usmobile.com/ which is $25/mo list price (and less if you pay for the year, or if they're having a sale) which will give you Unlimited Data and 1GB a month of global roaming data If you pay $45 you can get unlimited data from Mint for $15/mo: https://www.mintmobile.com/plans/ https://www.mintmobile.com/plans/ It's not unheard of! It's actually the high speed internet at home that is less competitive - the prices in Europe are unheard of.
  - jorvi 1mo ago
    Only some places. Netherlands is €45-60 for 1 gbps (we don't make 4x-6x the money Spaniards do), unless you live in an area that actually sees multi-line competition. We do have an interesting sidegrade: 5G Klik & Klaar from Odido (formerly T-Mobile / Deutsche Telekom) for €26. If you point it the right way out your window, you can get 700-1000 mbps down and 150 (capped) mbps up. Ping is around 35ms. Horrid modem firmware though, you get ping spikes up to 400-850ms (!!) under load due to bufferbloat, but you can of course solve that with your own router and SQM :+)
    - reillyse 1mo ago
      Is this line of site to a very high mast? Enabled because the Netherlands is so flat?
hocuspocus 1mo ago
The main issue with copper comes from the active infrastructure rather than the physical lines. I work at an ISP that gets DSLAM equipment from Huawei, we run one of the few G.fast VDSL deployments in the world using this particular hardware. Huawei has stopped manufacturing this product line (the Swiss market is a rounding error ;), which will force us to fully migrate some neighborhoods, only for backup inventory. Germany being 15 years late, I assume you can still buy similar hardware from AVM though.
sph 1mo ago
> In Italy we are at 78% of addresses covered > UK is at 85% FTTH [on a sibling comment] Meanwhile I have 1 Gb/s FTTH in an Italian village of less than 100 souls, while I couldn’t reach 300 Mbit/s on copper in London zone 4. I have been surprised at how well they have improved the situation in Italy, and in dismay at how terrible it is in UK.
- sonar_un 1mo ago
  The UK is absolutely terrible. I've noticed this quite a bit in my travels there.
- Symbiote 1mo ago
  Average speeds are higher in the UK than Italy. My brother in the UK has 1Gb/s fibre in a village of less than 100. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_...
  - sph 1mo ago
    Well I guess I must have been unlucky in 13 years in 5 flats around London with an average broadband speed of ~150 Mb/s
    - Nekobai 1mo ago
      No, you're totally right. I'm currently in Zone 4, maximum _theoretical_ speed is 67 Mbps.
    - Symbiote 1mo ago
      Clearly, yes. Unless you're claiming your personal experience invalidates a long running, well regarded statistical analysis.
- rsynnott 1mo ago
  It’s not uncommon for cities to be worse than rural areas now. In Ireland, nearly all rural premises have 10gbit-capable fibre available (will be literally all by early next year) but parts of central Dublin are stuck with VDSL. Retrofitting in cities can be quite slow and expensive.
thefz 1mo ago
> In Italy we are at 78% of addresses covered Complete bullshit. BUL maybe is close to that percentage P1G is nowhere near and is never going to reach full coverage in 2030.
sonar_un 1mo ago
I am in Italy right now, in fact, spent a lot of time here. I can safely say, the 5G sim coverage is extremely spotty, and when you can get internet from a physical line, it's generally pretty poor speeds. I am pretty sure a lot of that 78% includes 1 bar of LTE coverage, so it's "technically" true.
_mpn_ 1mo ago
Because deploying fiber is so hard in NYC, I use Calyx Institute (https://calyxinstitute.org/membership https://calyxinstitute.org/membership) on a MikroTik Chateau 5G R16. Calyx uses T-Mobile towers. I use the internet via L2TP to a VPS to give me a static IPv4 and IPv6 /56 block. This is only for upload speeds. I get 45-80 Mbps uploads. I used Spectrum for four months but because of my L2TP setup, DOCSIS ACK suppression doesn't work; it's TCP inside L2TP UDP and then ACKs are then sent over the wire. This meant sluggish internet under load. Spectrum did install a high-split amp but it's still not turned on afaict. Row townhouses in Brooklyn and Queens have Fios, but not in Manhattan. I wish I could just do a NYT ad but that'd force me to liquidate a decent chunk of my E*Trade and J.P. Morgan accounts. I am right now visiting Belgium and I saw multiple towns, including historic neighborhoods with Proximus fiber splitters: Brussels, Antwerpe, Ghent and Bruges. The fiber and Telenet Coax is so well organized when compared to NYC's coax mess. However, where Fios is available, Verizon does an okay job with organizing fiber. Verizon said killing line sharing would bring more fiber. Yet Proximus built fiber in historic cities more than Verizon did. I don't believe Orange France legally has to share fiber, but in return Orange can't block Free/SFR with payola deals.
juliendorra 1mo ago
Several of the issues you point have been solved in France via regulations (on the ISP and on the tenants of condos). It tools several years, even decades, but we ended up with fiber regulations that are good (could have been better and faster).

gigel82 1mo ago

Damn, we pay $110 for 5Gbps in Seattle only because the 2Gbps would be $100. Cellular plans are also a lot cheaper in Europe :(

domh 1mo ago
I pay £6 per month for a sim only contract, which gives me 4GB of data. In the USA I feel like I was paying closer to $40-50 for a google fi sim? Which admittedly did have better roaming. Now I just get an e-sim for travel and it works out to be £3ish per day

martinald 1mo ago

UK is at 85% FTTH or 91% gigabit (including DOCSIS): https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/ https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/. Given VM are a fair way through their XGS-PON upgrade it'll probably be 90%+ FTTH imminently.

telesilla 1mo ago

I spent time in the interior of Portugal that had fibre internet, it was very impressive and incredibly helpful to the village. Better payment services and banking for example.