Density doesn't really make the sort of difference you might think.

Every home in america has electricity and plumbing even though those utilities have the same density problem. Up until the rise of cell phones, every home had a telephone line as well.

In many ways, the lack of density actually makes it easier for you to install new lines. It's a lot easier and faster to plow through a long strip of grass next to a highway than it is to deal with a built up ubran location (I've actually done this work).

US regulations actually give telecoms a leg up in a lot of ways to expand services. These private companies have utility access to power polls and easement access to common lines. About the only regulation that can get in the way is some cities and states have minimum service requirements before you can start burying in a new territory. That is a give away to the ISPs to tamp down competition.

The reason internet is so crap is because utility lines are all private. For example, in the UK BT owns all the lines and British law allows for line rental from 3rd party ISPs. That's what allows you to get a wide variety of ISPs without having to plow in a brand new line to your location. That shared infrastructure monopolized by a central government authority is exactly what the US would need to have fast internet everywhere. Without that, ISPs have no incentive to increase speeds as new competition is very hard to create or come by.

As an Australian it's hilarious to hear that. We have less than 10% the density of the USA. And yeah, we blame everything on density too, even though 90% of the country is a desert with noone in it (so no need to lay cable or build roads there), and we are one of the most urbanised countries in the word (IIRC most of the population lives in 3 cities).

It's fair to critique this article not covering this, but I also think this is largely a red herring. The vast majority of the issue in the US is suburban, where density isn't really a problem. The US has a lot of rural areas, but they represent a tiny fraction of the population.

As a comparison, Australia has roughly the same land-mass as the contiguous states, but with less than a tenth of the population. It has its fair share of ISP and telecoms issues, but not as the US for the most part. Most people live in cities with good internet infra, most of the rest live in towns with at least some choice. Not perfect, a long way to go, but better than the collection of monopolies the US has.

There are cities in the US that have 2.5x the population density that Zurich does. Rural Texas might have this excuse, but New York City absolutely does not.

Why are you using all of US then compare the internet of most US cities and to most cities in Europe and Asia. US has a problem of false advertisement it is portrayed as the free market but reality it is filled with monopolies/duopolies/captured markets in most industries and americans are propagandized to believe stupidly that it is a good thing.

The higher the density, the more problematic to dig up the streets to bury the fibre lines. And US streets are much wider to dig the lines.

I've seen city-level street works in the US and they are incredibly slow compared to national highway work, or street work in Europe. Like 10x slower. And getting the permissions? Impossible

It appears the author lives in Germany. In my experience, Europeans who haven't visited the US (I don't know if he has or not) often have a hard time grasping just how HUGE the country is. It literally spans an entire continent east to west. In Europe, you can usually drive to another country's border, or the coast, within 4-6 hours (sometimes more depending on where you are). In parts of America, you can drive for 24 hours in the same direction without even crossing into a different state. I heard about one German auto engineer who was visiting Los Angeles. He looked at a map and thought it would be a fun drive to go to Portland and back on a Saturday. He was shocked when his American colleagues told him to look at the map's scale more closely, and that it would be more than 24 hours of driving just to get there and come back.

So yes. Regulations certainly play a part, but so does geography.

Is that 2.5x number the average of the whole of the US compared to Switzerland? Because NYC probably has higher density than Switzerland, but Oklahoma probably has much lower than even that 2.5x number, and it doesn't make sense to put them under the same umbrella.

The vast, vast majority of Americans live in more dense areas.

A naive average national density obscures more than it reveals.

The US has it much easier not harder.

The average population density is pretty irrelevant here. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_population_map.pn...

Lots of high density cluster and much easier geography (Switzerland famously has lots of mountains in the way).

So the question is "Why do US metropolitan areas not have 25gbit fiber for about $60/month?".

Every story about how the US has awful internet has a comment like this. I suspect that the refusal to believe the US is worse at anything is part of the reason it never catches up in those areas.

This article isn't about coverage, it's about what goes in the duct if there is a connection. If Comcast can run a cable to your house, then they can put four strands and allow other ISPs access to them.

That said, how many of these homes have mains electricity? Landline phone service? If they can do that, then they can do fiber. Sure your cabin in Montana might not have it (though the equivalent in Sweden probably would), but the small town probably does.

How do you explain the top comment at this time (about Spectrum in NYC)? It can't get denser than NYC. So I guess it's not the density that's the problem.

Actually curious what you can get in NYC.

I’m getting 5/5gbps for $100 CAD in what qualifies as “rural Canada” for tax reasons. But in Toronto there was 10/10gbps for $30.

Surely there are cities with the same density in the USA?

Switzerland is half as dense as New Jersey.

It's around the same density as Delaware and Maryland. And it's full of giant mountains, which neither Delaware nor Maryland have.

People only using aggregate density calculation is so overly simplistic. Inside of each country there are patterns.

Imagine a country with two huge cities and a very long empty desert in the middle. Density can be low but its still easy to connect.

I not totally skeptical that some places are harder to connect then others but given we live in the modern world with algorithms and satellites we should be able to do a better job than top level density.

And I'm not saying this to convince you that Switzerland is easier. Frankly I do think it easier. But because I am actually interested if anybody knows if such work and estimations exist.

Like lets assume all fiber, cable and old phone connections are gone. How hard much would it cost to get every person to some very high speed.

Yes the complete lack of geography in the article should of raised red flags for people.

Except in my very rural and very poor part of the US we got a fiber co-op that formed a few years ago that provides 1 gig direct to home without a problem.

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