> I have no idea if Switzerland is any better, but the US situation in 2026 is appalling.

Kind of amazing that we're calling 1Gbps fiber "appalling".

Every thread about internet access attracts people with unique situations. NYC is a dense city that's hard to build in and has to deal with a lot of regulation.

I don't live in NYC and I'm not even in a dense area, but I have my choice of fiber providers up to at least 8G, maybe more. I haven't looked that hard. I'm not going to pretend my situation is normal across the US just like you shouldn't assume your situation is normal either. It's a big country and things are different everywhere.

Switzerland is the same: Internet access options depend on where you live. The article sneakily tries to imply that 25G is everywhere, but it's not.

Its not how bad must other areas be when NYC is this bad- its bad because its NYC. Corruption, aging infrastructure, enormous construction costs, diverse building types and complex ownership interests etc etc. The fastest and most competitive internet is in places like wealthy suburbs where you just roll it out without any issues.

I have 5 Gbps available in a near-rural area in the southern US.

It's just incredible how so many people in NYC and Los Angeles believe they have the highest standard of living in the US when they in fact are closer to the lowest.

Visitors from abroad also look at these decaying cities and think the rest of the country have their problems.

Everyone's mocking you for using more than 1 Gbps of internet bandwidth, but I honestly want to know how you are able to saturate it. I've found on even the fastest internet connections, it's difficult to get more than a few hundred Mbps, from any given sever. Do you have a bunch of people on the network downloading large files simultaneously, or are you connected to servers able to saturate your connection? I have trouble getting my computers to copy data between each other anywhere near the theoretical limit for a 1 Gbps NIC, despite being connected through only a single switch.

> imagine what someone in rural America goes through.

Here's the FCC's map of residential access to ≥1 Gbps fiber internet.

https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/area-summary/fixed?version=dec2...

Of course most areas don't have it, but take a look at the Dakotas. I won't say it's better than NYC, but it may be as good in quite a large number of counties where the population density is ~1/km²=~2/mi². Most of the ISPs in those areas are coops like BEK, Consolidated Telcom, Golden West, etc. that have been making good use of state and federal grants. Gigabit internet is generally $100/month from them (in NYC it's $90/month if I understand correctly).

Would be interesting to compare this to areas of Europe with a similar population density, e.g. Lapland or... well, maybe Lapland is the only one

> but the US situation in 2026 is appalling.

1Gpbs symmetric is not 'appaling' come on now.

> but the US situation in 2026 is appalling

appalling?

What exactly, in detail, can't you do with a 1 Gpbps connection?!

My home ISP delivers ~22 Mbps and it is totally fine for all use cases.

It is harder to install fiber in densely populated areas than in some backcountry farm. Imagine tearing open a busy street in NYC for a few weeks to install fiber vs. digging a trench in the dirt next to the farm road. Which one do you think costs more? For which do you think you need to jump through 1001 bureaucratic hoops?

Sydney, Australia - the most I can get is 500mbps from our government owned nbn. I have a 1Gb plan, but in reality it's half that.

There are issues everywhere. Companies that had their cables deployed made sure that any regulation that would eliminate that moat heavily favor them, either by forbidding other companies to deploy and forcing them to lease the already deployed infra or by forbidding them digging ir whatever bullshit.

Very few companies wanna get into deploying their own network (both in the states and europe), but the few that do make money out of it. I would be really surprised if Switzerland is any different.

Exactly why starlink's business was viable.

> If we're this bad in NYC, imagine what someone in rural America goes through.

It's actually easier in some ways. I can build tons of infrastructure to cover tens of thousands of people in fiber for what it would cost to dig up one NYC street for a few days.

I live in NZ, but work with mostly US SaaS'es. Got 1 gpbs fiber but I'm torn between downgrading to something like 500mbps which also downgrades your upload and upgrading to 6gbps so I get better international speeds (right now it's something like 100mbps tops).