I get it, the US is big, but I just can't understand still why the government itself doesn't invest heavily in fiber connections. Most of Europe did this since the early 2000s, and here I am, writing this from my home connection which is symmetric 10Gbps (frankly, I can't really measure it, because it's faster than my 2.5Gbps Ethernet card, so I just believe it) for less than $50/month. And it doesn't matter which country I am, because this is common in most countries.
> I get it, the US is big, but I just can't understand still why the government itself doesn't invest heavily in fiber connections.
Massive corporate lobbying.
It isn't even just that they don't proactively invest in public Internet infrastructure, they (primarily though not exclusively the Republicans) also work to make it illegal at the local level as a protectionism racket for the telecom companies. The same telecom companies who have proven time and time again they have zero interest in actually competing and instead have mostly just carved up what amount to regional monopolies for broadband services.
The consumers that I know of don’t have a clue what they need. They don’t understand that the upstream network is rarely the bottleneck. They’re prepared to pay a 30-40% premium to triple their network speed. Smart ISP’s bundle their upgrade with new Wifi mesh routers, because that is more often the issue. This is in NL, not the US, so there still is some price competition here.
If you live in the right neighborhood where they installed fiber lines for residential connection already. Most I get is coax internet fwiw although fiber is available in certain parts. I asked my telecom about fiber they said it would cost like a couple thousand running the line to me.
this also always gets forgotten when high speed rail comes up. Air travel makes a LOT of sense for the way the US population is distributed. Rail makes more sense when you want to have stops along the way, but in the US, there's a lot of nothing between distantly located cities.
Even in places where it makes all the sense in the world, we don't have quality rail. It's more expensive and slower to take the train than to drive from Boston to NYC, and that's a perfect length of trip for rail. The whole North East Corridor seems to run ancient track, and the "High Speed" Acela service doesn't even count as such in locales with modern HS services.
If it was just the matter of replacing track in the existing right-of-way they would have done that. Unfortunately, much of the NEC right-of-way between NY and Boston -- particularly in Connecticut -- is too curvy. Bulldozing a new, straighter right of way across CT is not politicaly feasible -- it would most likely require massive amounts of property seizure by eminent domain that nobody has the stomach for. If there were real breakthroughs in low cost tunnel boring machines there might be a way but it's not going to happen at or above ground.
The old rich folks in CT who don't want the NEC alignment don't care if it's in a tunnel (folks still came out to oppose the new alignment near Old Lyme even when the proposal changed to allow for a tunnel so they didn't have to see or hear the thing).
If there was true HS service on the NEC between Boston and NYC you'd easily get a far larger share of the BOS-NYC pax trips made. Estimates are about 15MM trips/yr with rail being about a third of that. Is getting an extra 5 million car trips off the road worth inconveniencing some of the most affluent communities in the US?
BOS NYC, driven is about 2 micromorts, the drive is about 140kg CO2. So, napkin math, if half the people traveling by car and plane switched to train, you save 5 lives per year and 500,000 tons of CO2 emission. That's a (shittily calculated, admittedly) estimate of the cost of inaction.
Specific corridors in the US are quite populous and quite ready for modern infrastructure. We just aren't in the mood to pay anything for it, unless it's more highway lane-miles.
The east coast and west coast states between them, however, have over half of the US's population and are mostly relatively dense. Transcontinental passenger service might be a little pointless, but clearly there is room for good-quality high speed lines. SF to Seattle, say, would be doable non-stop in about four hours on top-quality conventional (ie ~320km/h) rail. Less with high-speed maglev and other exotics, but now that China seems to have largely lost interest, I'm not sure if anyone is seriously pursuing those.
One attempt to do that (in CA) picked a not-great corridor, and hasn't done much in a decade. It's really turned people off it, even if there are much better places to try.
In the peripherial Europe, like the United Kingdom, fiber optic became available only in the last couple of years, definitely not early 2000s. There are still places within 80KM from London, near main train lines, where you can't get more than 50Mbps, so while probably most of the population of Europe has access to fast Internet, your statements are not entirely true. In 2012 average internet speed in the UK was 7Mbps and now it's probably around 75Mbps.
The UK has a particularly weird history with fibre; in particular it's one of the few places where G.Fast (ie super-VDSL; 500Mbit-1Gbit/sec over copper telephone line) saw significant rollout.
The UK's finally rolling out FTTH with fairly universal targets, but it did have an unusually messy journey there, arguably partially due to BT refusing to let FTTC die.
On the otherhand, fibre is now a requirement for any new dewllings in the UK. I have a friend outside of London who just upgraded to 2.5Gbps fibre today.
In 2023, only 64% of EU27 households had access to FttP (although 79% had access to gigabit-capable networks, and 93% to ‘next-gen’ networks (VDSL/DOCSIS 3/FttP)).
‘Gigabit connectivity for all by 2030’ is an EU policy goal.
> And it doesn't matter which country I am, because this is common in most countries.
I’ve spent a lot of time hiring and working with people across Europe and I can assure you that cheap 10Gbps symmetric fiber is absolutely not common across Europe.
In some of the countries where we hired we had difficulty with people getting any reliable connection at home, let alone high speed fiber. (Company supported WFH but reliable internet was a requirement).
I think you’re probably projecting from your own local experience into the entire EU, which is not accurate.
Where I am at which is around 598 people per square mile, fiber optic is being installed or has been installed for several years by AT&T allowing up to 1Gbps symmetric link. To put it in perspective, New York has a density of about 27,000 people per square mile. Rural areas have about 100 people per square mile. So where I live, I am between low and moderately dense with fiber. It's not that bad.
My answer to that: it's a combination of a belief and lobbying.
The belief: the federal government can't do anything correctly, and wastes taxpayer money.
The lobbying: Comcast, and regional telephone oligopolies lobby to keep all governments, local, state, national, from providing internet services. The motives here vary, but probably come down to keeping a local or regional monopoly.
Most of Europe has a culture of government-owned utilities and infrastructure, correct?
Here in the US, that does exist but is less prevalent. Some government programs end up costing too much while delivering too little, these get a lot of media attention and become the focus of too much political debate, and now nobody trusts the government to get anything done. (Despite all the government programs that do get run well.)
That said, I've long thought that the ideal arrangement for last-mile Internet should be that the local government (perhaps county) owns the fiber, contracts service and maintenance to a local company, and sells access to the fiber and customers to companies like AT&T and Comcast. Then companies can compete on service and price rather than which board members they can bribe.
But that's quite a bit more work than just telling Comcast that they can have exclusive access to all of the homes and businesses in the township and charge whatever they like.
I blame national ISPs using their money to buy up lobbyists and cozy up with the legislators. I know in Texas it’s outright illegal for cities/municipalities to setup an ISP. They have to rely on national providers to pick up the slack.
In reality, these companies have under the table deals with each other to avoid competing in a vast majority of regions, largely rural areas. Leaving them with shitty and unreliable internet service.
