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What? No, places like Chattanooga have certainly not increased their speeds through uncompetitive "Socialist" policies.

(This post intended with clear sarcasm).

Interesting. In the Netherlands, the compamy building and maintainimg the infrastructure is simply a different one from the one offering the tv/internet/phone subscription.
The former is controlled (or at least tightly monitored-I'm not too well-informed on the specifics) by the city/government, the latter is a simple service provider, and you can switch between any number of them without needing new cables.

TBF none of those places have nearly as much area to cover as the US. Still good points though.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
TBF none of those places have nearly as much area to cover as the US. Still good points though.

Canada checking in. Out here on the east coast in sunny Halifornia, I can get 100Mbps, unlimited data for $91.95/month, with options to go as high as 940 Mbps (for 149.95) on one of the networks (more on another I believe). I checked Maine's Comcast offering which was $89 for 100Mbps, but without the unlimited data.

I know that it gets cheaper in provinces like Manitoba and Saskatchewan that have an additional provider on top of our big 3 (Rogers, Bell, Telus), where those two provinces have/had a 4th provincial exclusive provider that was a crown corp or heavily regulated for the province's benefit. In more populated areas, there will be smaller ISPs that piggyback on the infrastructure of one of the big 3, same as our cell providers.

We not only cover a larger area up north, but also a vastly smaller population density. Our big issue up north is that the big 3 control most of the telecom infrastructure and business across the country and we suffer from lack of competition. I have a cell plan from my time in Manitoba, and I pay half what everyone does out here, for more data, simply because of the additional, provincially controlled/regulated carrier in that province.

We're also fortunate that net neutrality is more or less enshrined in law up here (though Bell is working to remove it), and our CRTC has done an okay job at being pro-consumer with striking down zero rating practices by some of our ISPs and keeping net neutrality in place.

Take Sweden as an example then. Even in the north where there's more moose per square kilometer than people we still get better internet for cheaper than much of the US.

What's the tax rate in Sweden?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What? No, places like Chattanooga have certainly not increased their speeds through uncompetitive "Socialist" policies.

(This post intended with clear sarcasm).

That's actually kind of funny. I mean we all know Chattanooga exists, but who ever actually thinks of anything cool happening in Chattanooga XD

 LordofHats wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What? No, places like Chattanooga have certainly not increased their speeds through uncompetitive "Socialist" policies.

(This post intended with clear sarcasm).

That's actually kind of funny. I mean we all know Chattanooga exists, but who ever actually thinks of anything cool happening in Chattanooga XD

Well, they do have the Choo-choo!

 Blacksails wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
TBF none of those places have nearly as much area to cover as the US. Still good points though.

Canada checking in. Out here on the east coast in sunny Halifornia, I can get 100Mbps, unlimited data for $91.95/month, with options to go as high as 940 Mbps (for 149.95) on one of the networks (more on another I believe). I checked Maine's Comcast offering which was $89 for 100Mbps, but without the unlimited data.

I know that it gets cheaper in provinces like Manitoba and Saskatchewan that have an additional provider on top of our big 3 (Rogers, Bell, Telus), where those two provinces have/had a 4th provincial exclusive provider that was a crown corp or heavily regulated for the province's benefit. In more populated areas, there will be smaller ISPs that piggyback on the infrastructure of one of the big 3, same as our cell providers.

We not only cover a larger area up north, but also a vastly smaller population density. Our big issue up north is that the big 3 control most of the telecom infrastructure and business across the country and we suffer from lack of competition. I have a cell plan from my time in Manitoba, and I pay half what everyone does out here, for more data, simply because of the additional, provincially controlled/regulated carrier in that province.

We're also fortunate that net neutrality is more or less enshrined in law up here (though Bell is working to remove it), and our CRTC has done an okay job at being pro-consumer with striking down zero rating practices by some of our ISPs and keeping net neutrality in place.

Wait. Do you have limited data on internet? Like, limited number of Mbs a month before being charged extra or your internet being slowed down? We have that on movile phones, but with normal internet we don't. I have optical fiber, 320mbps for 40€/month, with unlimited data.
And yesAlmightyWalrus, if I recall correctly, USA is one of the "civilized" nations with one the most expensive and worse internet service.

 Alpharius wrote:
What's the tax rate in Sweden?

Depends on how much you earn, but generally around 33% on income. VAT varies wildly depending on what you're buying; petrol has a higher VAT % than books, for example.

IIRC (been a while since I did this law course) there's no monopoly on the usage of the internet infrastructure in Sweden because ISPs are bound by law to allow any other ISP that wants to to use their lines. As such, if ISP A wants to throttle YouTube unless you pay, for instance, any consumer can move to another ISP.

I don't know if there's any subventions for the construction of further fibreoptic lines or the like, but I highly suspect there is.

 Galas wrote:


Wait. Do you have limited data on internet? Like, limited number of Mbs a month before being charged extra or your internet being slowed down? We have that on movile phones, but with normal internet we don't. I have optical fiber, 320mbps for 40€/month, with unlimited data.
And yesAlmightyWalrus, if I recall correctly, USA is one of the "civilized" nations with one the most expensive and worse internet service.

Yeah, I get unlimited data on the internet. My cell plan has a limit, unfortunately, but that's life when we have a functional oligopoly up here.

 Galas wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
TBF none of those places have nearly as much area to cover as the US. Still good points though.

Canada checking in. Out here on the east coast in sunny Halifornia, I can get 100Mbps, unlimited data for $91.95/month, with options to go as high as 940 Mbps (for 149.95) on one of the networks (more on another I believe). I checked Maine's Comcast offering which was $89 for 100Mbps, but without the unlimited data.

I know that it gets cheaper in provinces like Manitoba and Saskatchewan that have an additional provider on top of our big 3 (Rogers, Bell, Telus), where those two provinces have/had a 4th provincial exclusive provider that was a crown corp or heavily regulated for the province's benefit. In more populated areas, there will be smaller ISPs that piggyback on the infrastructure of one of the big 3, same as our cell providers.

We not only cover a larger area up north, but also a vastly smaller population density. Our big issue up north is that the big 3 control most of the telecom infrastructure and business across the country and we suffer from lack of competition. I have a cell plan from my time in Manitoba, and I pay half what everyone does out here, for more data, simply because of the additional, provincially controlled/regulated carrier in that province.

We're also fortunate that net neutrality is more or less enshrined in law up here (though Bell is working to remove it), and our CRTC has done an okay job at being pro-consumer with striking down zero rating practices by some of our ISPs and keeping net neutrality in place.

Wait. Do you have limited data on internet? Like, limited number of Mbs a month before being charged extra or your internet being slowed down? We have that on movile phones, but with normal internet we don't. I have optical fiber, 320mbps for 40€/month, with unlimited data.
And yesAlmightyWalrus, if I recall correctly, USA is one of the "civilized" nations with one the most expensive and worse internet service.

Erm... I get 60 mbps for unlimited data for $45/month ($52 with taxes). My cable company is Charter Spectrum... and I've never seen the need to go to the Ultra package (100Mbps) at $90/moth. Even though we stream everything in my house as we don't have cable TV. Service, in my area at least, is excellent.

I wouldn't call 60mbps for 45$/month excellent service, but of course this is different from country to country.
Of course, is not just about speed but how stable it is. I have lived in zones with high speed, but the net was very unstable, so it wasn't even good enough. And to be honest, I didn't feel a need to upgrade from my previous 40mbps to 300mbps before. 40 was good enough. But after having 320, I can't go back even to 80-100. It feels slow as f****

 Galas wrote:
I wouldn't call 60mbps for 45$/month excellent service, but of course this is different from country to country.
Of course, is not just about speed but how stable it is. I have lived in zones with high speed, but the net was very unstable, so it wasn't even good enough.

Yup... I get extremely low latency. I can have 4 TVs streaming at the same time, plus one PS4 online gaming, plus me on dakka on my laptop and my wife on her phone/wifi doing whatever without any issues.

Only time we've experience bad service is if some act of god knock out power, or something like that.

Bran Dawri wrote:Interesting. In the Netherlands, the compamy building and maintainimg the infrastructure is simply a different one from the one offering the tv/internet/phone subscription.
The former is controlled (or at least tightly monitored-I'm not too well-informed on the specifics) by the city/government, the latter is a simple service provider, and you can switch between any number of them without needing new cables.

There's usually some law/rule like that. Sometimes they can even be the same company but the infrastructure is regulated so you don't end up with half a dozen ISP's digging lines to the same block. To make this workable whoever lays down the connection has to allow others ISP to use the line at a low and regulated price. That way all ISPs can use the same infrastructure, the companies who actually build it get it cheaper (more profit from their own endusers), and also get a little bit form the other ISP who use it to connect to their customers. And we, the people, get competition between multiple suppliers.

NinthMusketeer wrote:TBF none of those places have nearly as much area to cover as the US. Still good points though.

bs. For one Scandinavian countries can do it. And on the other hand the same happens all over the USA even in population dense regions (NYC, Los Angeles,…). According to your hypothesis those should be teeming with an abundance choices (as so many people are living in comparatively little space) but strangely that's also not happening.

The main problem is not that the USA is huge—It's a problem but even if one were to compress the USA into 1/20 of its size it wouldn't change the situation—but that the laws, regulations, and rules are messed up which leads to most people ending up with not enough competing options. If I remember correctly the early ISP got billions to build the high speed internet infrastructure for the USA but the wording was so bad that high speed was defined as barely above ISDN level of bandwidth and that led to them pocketing most of the money while providing not much of a service (and having huge bottlenecks when, later, the big pipes were needed). The ISP also whined and wanted—for building that infrastructure—control which led to them often being able to veto things like municipal ISPs and other competition.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What? No, places like Chattanooga have certainly not increased their speeds through uncompetitive "Socialist" policies.

(This post intended with clear sarcasm).

That is awesome! More cities need to do stuff like this- investing in proper infrastructure is a no-brainer really.

 Haighus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What? No, places like Chattanooga have certainly not increased their speeds through uncompetitive "Socialist" policies.

(This post intended with clear sarcasm).

That is awesome! More cities need to do stuff like this- investing in proper infrastructure is a no-brainer really.

The problem is that frequently they get sued by telecoms and forced to stop, or lobby at the state level and get laws put on the books banning municipalities from engaging in such investments.

No joke.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
TBF none of those places have nearly as much area to cover as the US. Still good points though.

Because people seem to be reading my first sentence and not the second. Seriously, I didn't at all suggest it was some sort of excuse.

I pay $80, and I get about 60mbps. But that's for more than the internet, it also comes with a landline connection with free, and a DVR with a built in basic cable package.

When the broadband network comes to my area, which will be soon, apparently we'll be able to go to 100mbps and a lower price. But rollout of the new fiber to the node scheme has been fairly disastrous so far, so we'll probably wait about 6 months before we sign up.

My parents pay like £30 a month for 30 mbps...and we get 10 mbps on a good day.

Wish I had 60 mbps.

Well, I have 320 mbps but my super old PC only supports max 100 mbps... first world problems

I pay about $95 for 100mbps, but the speed is actually around 20-30mbps. I wonder how many people regularly check their actual speeds. For me, it's sort of become a weird OCD thing.

Here in Henley-on-Thames I pay £20 a month for 17mbps down, 1mbps up.

At my house in Japan it was about £25 a month for 100mbps in both directions.

 Blacksails wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
TBF none of those places have nearly as much area to cover as the US. Still good points though.

Canada checking in. Out here on the east coast in sunny Halifornia, I can get 100Mbps, unlimited data for $91.95/month, with options to go as high as 940 Mbps (for 149.95) on one of the networks (more on another I believe). I checked Maine's Comcast offering which was $89 for 100Mbps, but without the unlimited data.

YIKES! Not sure how fast I have(4G anyway. good enough for HD youtube videos which is more than I need anyway) unlimited for 20€ per month(well 19.95€ to be exact).

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What? No, places like Chattanooga have certainly not increased their speeds through uncompetitive "Socialist" policies.

(This post intended with clear sarcasm).

That is awesome! More cities need to do stuff like this- investing in proper infrastructure is a no-brainer really.

The problem is that frequently they get sued by telecoms and forced to stop, or lobby at the state level and get laws put on the books banning municipalities from engaging in such investments.

No joke.

"Free & open internet."

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I pay about $95 for 100mbps, but the speed is actually around 20-30mbps. I wonder how many people regularly check their actual speeds. For me, it's sort of become a weird OCD thing.

I read an article about a guy who had a script (Python I think) check his speed, and whenever it fell below a threshold it would automatically tweet at Comcast. I thought that was pretty funny.

 Sasori wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I pay about $95 for 100mbps, but the speed is actually around 20-30mbps. I wonder how many people regularly check their actual speeds. For me, it's sort of become a weird OCD thing.

I read an article about a guy who had a script (Python I think) check his speed, and whenever it fell below a threshold it would automatically tweet at Comcast. I thought that was pretty funny.

I think this script needs to be built into all operating systems... just add a bit which detects your ISP/you add your ISP in computer settings.

Yeah, this is definitely one where I'll say the republicans are out to total fething lunch on this.

Since this nuetrality thing was put in place, our ISP has installed Fiber, increased our speeds, and lowered our bill.

Furthermore, out here in Romania, my phone service that I'm paying for? 5 Euro a month, and I get so much free bonus data, that it's effectively a better plan then the one I'm paying about $60 a line for back in the US.

So yeah, obviously this whole "holding everything back" schtick is total BS. Especially when we take a look at other countries out there that are providing so much better then we are, for so much less.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I pay about $95 for 100mbps, but the speed is actually around 20-30mbps. I wonder how many people regularly check their actual speeds. For me, it's sort of become a weird OCD thing.

Checked just now...

13.7 mbps download, 2.99 mbps upload.

This is one of the good days...

Man, you guys are getting railed. I'm paying $70/mo and getting 270mbps down, 30mbps up and a 2TB cap. My plan plan is straight internet (no TV or cable) and it's like the 4th best plan - my ISP has gigabit ethernet now (cable, not fiber). But I feel like once you exceed around 200mbps, it sort of isn't worth it anymore - cap becomes more important than speed.