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Comment by tired_man | Hacker News Reader

Not cheap? Where does the writer live that USD$70 for 1Gbps seems expensive to him? I want to move there!

I pay $70 for AT&T's UVerse GigaPower fiber (300/300 right now) in Austin. The only reason we have that option though is due to Google Fiber making everyone up their game. Even Time Warner offers reasonably priced 300/20

> I pay $70 for AT&T's UVerse GigaPower fiber (300/300 right now) in Austin

Does that include the opt-out from tracking fee?

I don't live in Austin and don't have GigaPower, but I remember there was a kerfuffle around AT&T offering the service at two price points, cheaper if you allow them to track your web activities and something like $30 more if you opt-out.

Or, hopefully that whole thing just went away.

Edit: Link[0] to HN discussion

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7743447

That cheaper price would be great. Tracking's not much of an issue for me as they'd only see me hit my VPN service.

The fastest affordable option in South Africa is still ADSL. Line rental from Telkom (they have the telecom monopoly) costs me ~ZAR500 p/m and then I pay another ZAR130 for an unshaped, 60gb cappped account. This is a 4meg line, so max 400-odd kbps. So yeah, $70 seems pretty reasonable to me...

Doesn't South Africa have a backhaul problem though? Overpriced internet in North America tends to be artificial scarcity at the last mile. I'm not sure that's the case in SA?

I've visited quite a few times and yeah, your internet connections truly are painful to use even when I'm on holiday and not really using the net that much. Much worse than rural areas of Europe which typically only get 1-3Mbit/s ADSL. Some of it is the latency to faraway CDNs and EU/US-centric servers and saturated intercontinental cables, but even South African sites seem to be awfully slow, with high latency, which to me suggests overloading on the core infrastructure. Is that the case? (I know you see microwave comms towers all over the place - if those are being used as the main cross-country internet links then that could be it.)

Remember most African sites are hosted on Western web hosts.

"Western" seems like an odd term to distinguish Europe/North America from Africa, but I assume that's what you meant.

I don't have any data to back up or refute such a claim, but it makes sense: Europe & North America have economies of scale for internet infrastructure, including hosting, so hosting there is presumably cheaper than in SA or other African countries. Which drives the domestic demand for hosting abroad, causing that money to not be reinvested in the local infrastructure. I don't know what the solution to that is. Maybe global CDNs building (more) datacentres in Africa will bring some of that money back and have a positive impact on the local ecosystem? (Taking their hosting money abroad is presumably the rational choice for most African companies, so it's difficult to fault them for not "helping themselves")

in Moscow, Russia, I pay currently $12/mo for 1Gbps, plus additional $2 for static ipv4 (average income is about $1k I suppose)

edit: added income reference

yeah, but how is your peering once you get outside the country's border? people talk of super-cheap fast residential internet but usually it suffers once when you start accessing content that's remote.

Almost full speed to Europe. Slower to US and Asia

Count me in.. all these other posts about anything fiber optic is insane.

Try Australia. $80/month for 8mbit/1mbit if you're lucky.

For reference, our business connection (50/50) costs ~$1200/month.

$70 for an internet connection is not cheap. The author just means that it's not a no-brainer for individuals currently on one of the big providers who are on a budget.

It is for the area.

Comcast charges $65.95/mo. to $78.95/mo for 70mb/s in the Detroit metro area. $70/month for 1gbs service and not having to deal with Comcast is a no-brainer

Oh wow that is expensive. In The Netherlands the big ADSL/Cable providers are 20/30 euro p/m + whatever you pay for TV and phone. The fiber operators charge 40-50 euro. I didn't expect it to be that much more expensive in the US.

Cable is certainly cheaper in the Netherlands, but not fiber.

In Utrecht, Online.nl is ~$54 for 50mbps fiber.

Fiber.nl is ~$44 euro for 50mbps fiber.

Per https://www.internetten.nl and online.nl

$70 for 1gbps rather beats that by a drastic margin. Many cities in the US are seeing gigabit consumer fiber deployments at that price range.

> $70 for 1gbps rather beats that by a drastic margin.

You need to factor in the marginal utility of added bandwidth. Few people can meaningfully utilise 20-50mbps (a full HD stream is <10mbps), much less 1gbps, so you're looking at paying $20-30 for, essentially, nothing.

For the record, I count myself in the group of people who can't utilise such a connection, although I'm squarely in the group of people who'd pay for the faster connection in a heartbeat regardless.

In London BT charges about $115/mo for a 300Mbit optic fiber connection.

Cox Cable user in Santa Barbara, $66.99/mo for 50mbs. I'd gladly pay $70 for 1gbs.

Time Warner 100/10 Mbps at $50 per month in NYC. Promotion is at ~$45. But I invested my own router and my own modem (one of those Motorola SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0) to get the most out of my bucks. Verizon in the neighborhood can give a two-year promotion for similar price for FiOS optic, but I will have to get rid of my modem and try the experience... god knows good/awful.

Why is upload always so low? Is it expensive for upstream bandwidth?

> Why is upload always so low? Is it expensive for upstream bandwidth?

Nah. Sometimes it's due to the last mile access technology being asymmetric (ADSL, cable, PON), but mostly it's to differentiate consumer products from business products.

That's not the issue with FiOS.

Their asymetric bandwidth offering is configured that way on purpose, it isn't the hardware. They offer symetrical bandwidth if your line a business connection.

I've had FiOS residential and business over the _same_ line (different times, of course) and it goes to the same CO.

Nobody needs 70 mb/s for basic internet access. I think the cheap lower/end is 20-30 /month. I pay $30/month for 50 mb/s and it works just fine for HD streaming videos.

I would love higher BW but while I could afford it I already have my own cable modem and to upgrade would need to get special equipment from my ISP, which I would have to lease and deal with the inconvenience of giving back at one of their far away locations. It's been annoying the past so decided to pass.

But for anyone who is price sensitive doubling/tripling their internet bill is a non-starter.

It's even worse in Detroit, since those Comcast prices you listed are temporary ones for new customers or bundles. You can call them to complain and they'll probably knock the price down but it's a hassle. I pay $67 for only 25mb/s!

That's the actual rate, the promo rate is $39.99

www.xfinity.com/internet-service.html

In Switzerland, 1Gbs down/up optic fiber costs 150 CHF, roughly $150 USD. It comes with TV (no separate Internet only option). It's a lot of money, but given the median income still very affordable.

You're probably talking about the Swisscom offering, which is roughly comparable to what at&t might offer. Fiber7 sells 1 Gbps lines for around CHF 65.- per month, without the obligation to also get a TV subscription and more nonsense.

Are you happy with it? I like the idea of getting rid of the TV that I do not use, but I am quite happy with the performance and support that Swisscom offers.

This is about what I pay here in Denver for gigabit FTTH via CenturyLink.

CableOne is $55 for 100Mb/5Mb, $105 for /200Mb/10Mb, but mostly serves small rural areas in the US.

Agreed, I think the OP is dreaming.

In urban NZ we pay almost this much for 100% shitty ADSL with data caps. Speeds vary wildly but it'd be rare to get more than 50 down / 10 up. 1Gbps is not available to consumers anywhere in the country no matter how much you pay AFAIK.

Romania is about the only place I'm familiar with where 1gbps (consumer) is really cheap, but it's only cheap based on higher level Western incomes.

~$20 for 1gbps in Bucharest. That's the equivalent of around $80-$100 adjusted to US incomes.

In The Netherlands it's €40,- ($43) per month for a 1 Gbit/s consumer fiber connection.

You can get 1G in Minneapolis for $65. But it's only in a few neighborhoods so far - sadly not mine. :(

Agreed - even in Seattle 1Gbps is $80/month.

I'm paying that for 70Mbps in Denver...

What provider?

I'm at like $40/month for 12Mbps in Lakewood (on CenturyLink).

$70 a month to Comcast for 100 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up.

That must be an intro offer. It's $70 for 75/5 in Arvada.

I've never had anything but "intro" offers.

I call up every year (I set a calendar reminder) and remind them that I have other choices. Bam I am yet another offer for the next year.

Works every time.

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