In my small island community, I participated in a municipal committee whose mandate was to bring proper broadband to the island. Although two telecom duopolies already served the community, one of them had undersea fiber but zero fiber to the home (DSL remains the only option), whereas the other used a 670 Mbps wireless microwave link for backhaul and delivery via coaxial cable. And pricing? Insanely expensive for either terrible option.

Our little committee investigated all manner of options, including bringing municipal fiber across alongside a new undersea electricity cable that the power company was installing anyway. I spoke to the manager of that project and he said there was no real barrier to adding a few strands of fiber, since the undersea high voltage line already had space for it (for the power company’s own signaling).

Sadly, the municipality didn’t have any capital to invest a penny into that fiber, so one day, one of the municipal counselors just called up a friend who worked for a fiber laying company and asked them for a favor: put out a press release saying that they were “investigating” laying an undersea fiber to power a municipal fiber network on the little island.

A few weeks later, the cable monopoly engaged a cable ship and began laying their own fiber. Competition works, folks. Even if you have to fake it.

I don't understand the desire (fetish?) for high speed home Internet connections at home.

I have 25 Mbps up. 10 Mbps down. Have had it for years. It's fine.

It's fine when both my wife and I are working from home and doing calls. It's fine for software development. It's fine for email and web browsing, and everything other than downloading maddeningly large files, 99% of which shouldn't be that large anyway. It's fine for watching streaming shows. Maybe if our kids turn out to be YouTube addicts when they're older we'll upgrade; maybe we won't for that reason.

What are people doing with their higher-speed Internet connections that makes it valuable to have such fast ones??!

Most states in America ban municipal fiber. They saw EPB (Chattanooga) and said, no, we must make sure that doesn't ever happen again. That is how 'free' market is done in US, all the rules are to make sure the richest people become richer.

This article gets ahead of itself.

The issue isn’t the splitting. There is no fiber to even split in most places. A lot of places in America had their “network” infra built 50-100 years ago on copper and no one wants to pay to basically rebuild all of it.

I happen to live in an area where there are still above ground utilities.

We got >5 gig fiber fast. We have 700Mbps 5G. I literally watched them string the fiber on the poles.

It’s still not shared, but it’s fast because it’s new. Shared would be preferred, but you need destroy + “new” first, and most people are fine with what copper gives them. Shared may even be cheaper but most people don’t think we need to rebuild anything.

In Canada our internet became much faster for cheaper with better customer support when the government allowed competition from smaller players. Telecom also got better when they allowed a foreign competitor to compete against the government mandated oligopoly. But the market is still heavily regulated in a way that benefits the existing monopolies.

I have a gentle rule, which is when discussing (geo)politics with friends, we should try not to use Switzerland as an example. It's just too good, too rational, too sensible, too well run, in myriad ways that other countries should be able to emulate, but consistently and constantly don't.

While on surface scratch level this might be a good entry analysis it lacks deeper comparisons to other great networks nations Like Romania or South Korea. Is it cheaper there? What about coverage? Uptimes? Why is the service "better"? Why is it by the way a free market "lie"? ( For me a lie means a wrong information by purpose)

Because it isn't a free market in the USA. And those that regulate it don't seem to care. Or maybe it is those that have been granted a monopoly do everything they can to retain said monopoly. Things would be different if we actually had a free market

Because Switzerland is the size of Maryland. Imagine pouring all federal resources into one cramped state.

I thought spamming your own blog was not allowed here.

Even in Wireless / Mobile Carrier they have company like American Tower / China Tower that shares infrastructure cost. So none of this is new, I always thought the reason it is not done is because of company interest and politics. Internet should be treated just like Electricity and Water.

Now the technical question, why no sharing? why point to point? why 4 fibre and not 2 or 8? And the no sharing is a little bit of gimmick, because at the end of the day everything is shared. The backbone has 100Gbps and you cant have 10 labours all using 25Gbps. I also dont think P2P make sense in a metropolitan city like Tokyo, New York or Hong Kong, especially in high rise, ultra high density buildings with limited space. When 50G-PON barely meet demands we are looking at 100G or 200G-PON. Individual fibre is simple not feasible in those settings.

I wish this kind of perspective (international comparison) could be applied to several areas of the USA economy: tax compliance, campaign finance, and banking regulation. Good work, OP.

In Charlotte NC, I have 3 choices of internet providers, two of them fiber.

As you are doing with this post, "broaden the base." The vast majority of voters do not understand the issues here. That is your biggest obstacle.

My POV would call this regulatory failure vs free market lie. That way, the enemy is a smaller target.

Path to progress is to get a friendly state (WY, RI, TX) to pass the legislation. Then shop that around among activists in other states.

If people knew they were only getting 1/25 of a shared product, that would get political hackles up.

Thanks for taking the time to think this through and make your argument.

We already have this in Utah with Utopia with 53% coverage across the state (A state 5 times the size of Switzerland) so kind of weird the post is acting like Europe is special or something.

And there are lots of ISPs to choose from, several with 10Gbps symmetrical. Because it's dark fiber that you can literally purchase (I was quoted about $3k to purchase the fiber to the CO), there's nothing stopping you from putting 25Gbps optics on both ends if you are super determined.

Good take, and most of the data in the article is quite correct. The problem is a total mix up of cause and effect. The US has had a decent communication network since way back. We had telegraph, telephone and telex. Bell and AT&T and all that stuff. We've invented and piloted modems, T1 and cable TV.

Our infrastructure at times goes back 200 years old. We have rules and words in today's networking linguo that go back 70 years old. You can't just go and tell that it would have been better this way. It absolutely would. And I'm happy for Swiss people who can have 25gpbs at a fraction of the cost. But you can't do that with an emerging tech that is trying to replace existing architecture.

Swiss guys built all that after the tech was wide-spread in the world, and they have built it over a very outdated infrastructure. It was a breeze.

US just unable to use this approach. We can't.

Should we come up with a new one? Yes. Should we look at the Swiss solution and try to replicate it. Yes. Is it awesome? Yes. Would it work here? No.

Regardless if it's Switzerland, Germany or the USA. Everyone has better than we have in Australia. I can't wait to go back to Asia after citizenship to join the developed world again.

Init7 has on its blog another amazing write up https://blog.init7.net/en/die-glasfaserstreit-geschichte/

I'm in Zurich and I have 1Gb. My provider is offering higher for no additional cost - I'd have to put in a new modem/fiber-to-Ethernet adapter. However my home network is cat-5e and my switch is also 1Gb so I don't bother - it's pointless.

Switzerland also happens to have over 5x population density of USA, and 80% higher household median income based on quick google.

I get 10g symmetric in Austin for $150/m. I had Cox before, and it was $180ish for 1g down and ~50mb up. Things are improving!

So the author's proposed solution is more government control. Pass.

This article is hard to take seriously when it presents 25 Gbps internet like it's available everywhere in Switzerland. Even the page you click on has an "Up to" and requires you to enter your address to check availability.

That's on top of the usual problems with comparing small European countries to all of America. Switzerland's entire population is barely larger than the population of New York City. There are several metro areas in the US with more people than Switzerland.

Switzerland is also very, very small. It's lands mass is equal to about 0.5% of the United States. We only have a handful of states smaller than Switzerland.

There are valid geopolitical discussions to be had, but it's hard to read these articles that single out tiny little European countries and compare them to the sprawling United States and ignore the elephant in the room.

Very misleading article. There is only one provider init7 and coverage is definitely not good in rural areas. Here is an map : https://ftth.init7.net/

This factoring of a market to enable competition by centralizing minimal infrastructure seems the bedrock of best governmental practice. Are there other examples to lean on? How do we turn this into common knowledge?

Im genuinely curious what is a use-case for 25GB Internet in a typical Switzerland household?

How many Switzerlands is USA again

What? There is no free market with wired internet. State, federal, and municipalities entrenched local monopolies through "tax breaks", subsidies, over regulation, piles of permits, and many more.

The cable/fiber providers played all areas of government like a fiddle.

Ho-lee smokes is that Speedtest screenshot even real? Have some mercy for those of us in third-world infrastructure (US).

This is about urban Switzerland. Way out in the country, we still have crap copper up on poles, which maxes out at 25 Mbits.

But yes, Swisscom (owners if the old crap copper) do have to let the competitors use it.

I think there’s quite a little bit missing here. As an example, Switzerland’s road/rail lines and US road:rail lines are both treated in this way and the outcomes are different. So I think the dominant effect isn’t in this form of building.

In addition, requiring fiber to each new home would expand housing costs in the US substantially because many are not located close by to existing fiber networks.

I’m not familiar with Swiss government policy but their government construction efforts are frequently far more successful for lower costs than ours. I cannot say whether Switzerland does it differently but usually in the US if there is surplus to be captured it is captured. As an example, if the Swiss system were to be implemented with US tools it would look like a government project would here: private companies would be invited to build the fiber to each home, and eventually one would win the contract and if the economic benefit would be $1b, they would charge $0.99b to construct it. M

If the government itself attempts to build it, it is constrained by its pension obligations and its desire to remain solvent to not actually have employees on staff. It therefore will use contractors in order to do things and we’re back in situation 1.

Governments originally formed for this kind of shared task and to enforce no free riding on it. But whatever factors drive US politics, US government purposes are to extract maximally from economically productive classes and redirect it to politically productive classes - through the use of selective government contracts and populist giveaways.

Australia copied the Swiss model and in a very short period of time we went from 2Mbps flaky copper to now you can upgrade most properties to 2Gbps fiber for around $300 one-off fee.

I hear 10Gbps is coming soon. The only annoying thing is that ours, despite being terminated the Swiss way, isn’t symmetrical, I think due to congestion on the sea cables?

Australia and the UK both have a similar business environment to the Swiss model (but without the superior bandwidth) due to the way that their government-owned telephone monopolies were privatised: Telecom Australia (now called Telstra) and British Telecom (now called BT) were required to allow their newly-formed competitors to sell services over their networks (for appropriate maintenance fees, of course).

The US and German models are consequences of just yelling 'Free market!' without stopping to think about what's actually being sold in that market, and how to encourage genuine competition.

why is it a lie? a natural monopoly doesn't bar other entrance, it's just naturally difficult, like space travel. also, unpopular comment but who cares? my Internet does everything I want it to and I'd wager that the price from the swiss government is highly subsidized. A market means a meeting of supply and demand, it's possible that currently the swiss speed is overboard for most users.

What does one achieve with 25 GB internet? Are speeds actually usefully faster, or is there some other bottleneck that makes the practical speed the same as in the US?

Also any workload I have that is bandwidth heavy would be on clouds machines between data centres and generally very fast. Are there reasons why someone at home would benefit from 25GB internet beyond whatever is available?

Is this a case of over engineered central planning instead of a blow against the free market?

Path dependence is a thing.

This article would be so much better without the generic AI-generated images everywhere.

Switzerland - self hosting paradise.

This article is technically incorrect on so many levels I didn’t even bother to finish it.

1. There may be a territorial monopoly on cable. But there is nothing stopping other companies from laying fiber. There are areas - including where I use to live that had cable and the phone company laying fiber

2. Everyone on the internet is using a “shared” connection. The difference is whether it is shared at the last mile or upstream. If your ISP doesn’t provision enough upstream capacity, the last mile doesn’t matter.

3. Fiber is rarely shared at the last mile.

4. Just a little research says 25Gbps is not universal across Switzerland

5. When I did have AT&T Fiber that advertised at 1GB u/d, it didn’t slow down no matter what time of day.

Please don’t suffer from the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. M

Municipal and co-op broadband in the US needs subsidies, loans, replication, and expansion. Where I live has a farmer co-op for electricity and internet in a mostly sparse, rural area with various residential housing developments scattered around. What was GFiber in the regionally-nearby metropolitan area had beta 20 Gbps internet for $250 USD/mo. 1 Gbps symmetric fiber co-op is $100 USD/mo. Prices are high compared to Europe. Possibly not high prices compared to Australia.

Before I start with my real comment I'll point out that the AI slop images really detract from this article and the author should stop.

To be fair to America here, it's pretty well served overall and is doing a lot better than the past. Average speeds are at around 100 Mbps with extremely widespread advanced 5G networks doing even better than that.

Cellular in particular is an area where the USA still seems to be ahead of most places, although they certainly pay for it. (Even that has gotten way, way better. I'm getting really nice MVNO service with unlimited data and even a decent unlimited tethering plan for less than $30/month)

25 Gigabit is nice but that's so expensive on the client device side to the point where it's basically unattainable for any consumer. Your average consumer primarily uses the Internet via WiFi devices that might max out at 300Mbps practical speeds or lower depending on when they purchased their devices and WiFi access point and their distance from it.

Then you've got the problem of the speed on the other end. 25Gb fiber is great until you realize that the server you are downloading from is only going to give you 1/100th a lot of the times.

I haven't even mentioned the fact that you're now adding CPU and SSD bottlenecks to the equation. I'm pretty sure 25Gb/s is higher than the maximum write speed on my SSD.

I have gigabit fiber at home and the ability to buy faster speeds from my ISP but I find the idea totally pointless when that means I would have to buy $500 in networking equipment (if not more) and possibly rewire my home (currently sketchy Cat 5e that seems to be installed poorly and I'm lucky to have that). I even have the latest WiFi 7 from a highly reputable prosumer brand along with very new WiFi 7 and 6E 6Ghz client devices but the highest speed I see using those devices where I want to use them is around 600Mbps.

Why isn’t france your European example? Its larger and better served than switzerland

First, the "free market", as always, is a myth. There's no such thing.

Second, we know why. It's pretty simple. It costs $X to provide a service like Internet. We charge $Y for that service. $Y can be less than $X if it's government subsidized. Typically it's more. As soon as you intermediate that service between the municipality (who owns the land) and the people (who live there), you then have to extract profits for that national ISP.

There's a word for this intermediation and rent-seeking: capitalism.

We've known for years that all the best Internet in the US is municipal broadband like Chattanooga. It's why national ISPs spend a lot of money to lobby for legislation to make such things effectively or actually illegal. By "effectively" I mean things like granting exclusive franchise agreements.

It baffles me how hard people work to refuse to understand this. It's not that difficult.

We don't need AT&T, Verizon, Spectrum, etc. They provide no value. They simply make things more expensive because profit. So every time your town or city chooses not to do this they're choosing the profits of shareholders who don't live in that area over the interests of residents who do.

Regulation won't solve that fundamental problem (we still need regulation, to be clear). Neither will competition. A network overbuild isn't the solution. We don't need multiple national ISPs. We need one municipal ISP (per municipality).

By the way, this goes for every utility. Gas, electricity, water, sewerage. All of them are simply made more expensive by privatization or the so-called "public-private partnerships" (which simply privatize profits and socialize losses).

what a well written article.

makes me very much consider moving to Switzerland. I'd be happy with symmetric 5Gbit internet. Anything more would be overkill imo.

I hated working with ISPs in the states. Ever try cancelling Comcast? You literally get routed to a department whose sole reason for being is to talk you out of it.

I really like the idea, share the lines compete on execution.

One thing the article doesn't mention is in Germany the electricity and gas lines are more or less this approach. I can switch electricity providers like the article author can switch ISPs. It's a common practice to do so about 1x a year to take advantage of customer acquisition incentives.

if the internet cabal in the US was actually a free market, you’d be right!

Looks like a good article explaining some key concepts like natural monopoly.

And yeah, the US model is to tout free enterprise to the skies but then have the state give control of a given market to a single or a couple of monopolists.

The problem is the US has created a constituency of state-dependent small and large business people whose livelihood depends this contradictory free-enterprise ideology.

Another thing that I think Europeans often fail to take into consideration is scale.

USA: 9,147,590 km^2

Switzerland: 41,295 km^2

That's a factor of 221.5 to 1.

tl;dr: The lie here is the assumption that the US has, or has ever had, a free market for wired internet service providers.

The article initially does a good job of describing the situation, but gets a bit confused when it gets to the history of the US, especially this line "This is what happens when you let natural monopolies operate without oversight." What it's discussing is not natural monopolies; it's discussing public utilities which are granted monopolies expressly through regulation, not despite it. Also, the US has a lot of oversite on wired ISPs. The prices are almost always approved by regulators.

A good example of a natural monopoly is Google search. It's pretty common for people to get frustrated by it, and look for other search engines. There's also multiple companies trying to compete with it. Normally this would mean that users would migrate to the competitors, but Google's search algorithms have been so good that practically every user has stayed with Google.

Natural monopolies are still easily disrupted, if the naturally-occurring barrier changes. For example, Internet Explorer had a natural monopoly, due to Microsoft's "embrace and extend" strategy giving it many capabilities that other web browser didn't have. When the internet market quickly migrated from a feature-first market to a security-first market, Internet explorer was quickly overtaken by Chrome and Firefox. There's a reasonable chance the same thing will happen with Google Search, as the market for it's search algorithm is overtaken for the marked for LLM based web searches, which Google is pretty bad at.

Anyway, the reason Comcast or Charter is the only one that provides cable internet in your area isn't because it's too expensive for anyone else to deploy cables. At the margins they operate, it would be well worthwhile to invest in a parallel infrastructure, but it's downright prohibited almost everywhere in the US. In fact, they may own the rights to lay cable, despite having never laid any. This is the case where I live, for the phone company, which plays by similar rules.

Fixed-wireless internet providers are starting to provide some competition, as backhauls have improve enough that cellular providers can compete with wired internet providers. T-Mobile is currently offering $20/mo fixed wireless add-on plans, with a five-year price guarantee. To complete with the fixed-wireless market, Comcast has launched a service called NOW Internet, which starts at $30/mo with a similar price guarantee and no no add-on requirement.

Speaking of "starting at", a large source of high prices is the common use of FUD to pressure users into paying for more than they need, or can even use. Very few households peak at more than even 40 Mbps (https://www.wsj.com/graphics/faster-internet-not-worth-it/) and the starting price of almost every provider is above that, but must customers have been talked into higher-tier plans.

The only web hosts that regularly provide data faster than that are video game distributors, so if you are in the type of household that would like to download game updates in minutes, instead of tens of minutes, while also watching multiple 4K video streams, then comparing other plans may be worthwhile, otherwise stick with the absolute cheapest plan available from all providers that serve your area. (And, if you are big on multi-player gaming, selecting the ISP with the lowest latency will be beneficial, but all plans from a given service will be the same latency.)

All connections to the Internet are at some level "shared", except perhaps if you get a direct connection to one of the core routers. As others have mentioned, this is in a dense area and much closer to being in a LAN environment.

The other point that I'd like to bring up is how useful is a 25G connection to your local demarcation point if your speeds to most sites will be far lower in practice because the Internet isn't circuit-switched.

Care to give a rebuttal?

The author keeps repeating this idea of a "dedicated internet connection" (DIA), and it kind of just irks me. Not because the author is wrong in how they use it, but because the term itself I find misleading, and I hate to see it continue to poison the common discourse.

A dedicated last-mile connection gives you a dedicated link to your ISP’s edge network, not a dedicated path across the internet. You won’t compete with your immediate neighbors on a shared access network anymore, sure, but you’re still sharing the ISP core, peering links, and transit links with the rest of their customers.

In practice this usually works well enough, because ISPs engineer their core and peering capacity with low over-subscription, especially for business and DIA customers. So you can often push near line rate anyway, but not because you have a truly reserved slice of the internet. A Switzerland-sized country would need like petabit-scale connectivity to provide actually dedicated 25G links (or even just 1G links) to everyone.