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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

How do these European nations compare on population density? I live in suburban silicon valley and have been surprised to see how much cheaper internet is for friends of mine who live in cities — even cities like NYC, which are equally expensive otherwise. (i.e., they're not just jacking up the price for folks in Silicon Valley because most people can afford it.) I pay $30 for 12/3 Mbps service; my city friends pay roughly the same for 100/10 Mbps service. This leads me to believe that population density is a big factor here.

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Sweden has lower population density than the US, but much better internet.

I think population density is a weak signal for competition in the US market, and that's what you're seeing.

95% of Swedes live in the tip. I doubt upper Sweden has good coverage being that it's a barren tundra.

You'd be wrong. Sweden has a program to essentially guarantee everyone access to broadband coverage, even (and especially) those who live in rural areas.

This map is from Finland in 2016, and shows only a few regions have >90% 100mbps availability.

https://m.imgur.com/wU5WXBV

To be fair, in the US (which is what we're comparing all of this to), broadband is defined as 25Mbps up/3Mbps down.

Ah - by that definition much of central London doesn't have broadband as I get 8 down 0.5 up and can't get much better. Still I find the 8 it basically fine. Maybe the vid is 720p rather than 1080p - whatever.

I'm seeing Sweden as having a significantly higher population density. I have no particular reason to trust this source [1], but it's the only one I found. Why do you say Sweden is less densely populated?

http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Sweden/Unit...

> Sweden - 45.43 sq km per 1,000 people

> United States - 30.16 sq km per 1,000 people

Looks like the US is half again more dense than Sweden according to that site.

Ah, my mistake. I think I was looking at the rural pop density stats.

I come from one of those countries. Basically all companies offer the same price regardless of location. Around here, population density may affect coverage -- as in, superfast Internet access may simply not be available in the middle of nowhere -- but not price.

I live in Cupertino (very suburban Silicon Valley) and I was paying $40/mo for 50/15Mbps. About a year ago I upgraded to symmetric gigabit for $80/mo. And this is AT&T (I would get Sonic if AT&T didn't block them!).

Oh, and as it turns out, I could also get 300Mbps from Comcast for $80/mo.

So I don't think density is the real issue here. It's like they said in the article, competition. They only reason AT&T started rolling out fiber was because Comcast has the 300Mbps service and they wanted to come out ahead.

"How do these European nations compare on population density?"

If that point held any water, San Francisco would be a bastion of broadband. It's not.

You only pay $30 for 12/3 service??

I pay $75 to AT&T for 12/.75 up in Marin county. Comcast will give me much faster service for just a little more $$, but they haven't connected the building yet, so AT&T is my only choice.

I call in every 12 months to get this deal renewed — the "regular" price is $50. AT&T is not available in my area, except for anemic 3/1 Mbps DSL service.

I live on the border of RWC and Woodside, and have talked to neighbors in central Woodside whom Comcast does not serve and would only do so if they pay $20,000 for the wires to be run to their house. They are stuck with the AT&T DSL service. Lack of choice is undoubtedly part of the reason that Comcast can charge so much here. And it's the reason that I bought Comcast stock a few years ago: https://medium.com/@nicklum/how-my-hatred-of-comcast-drove-m...

The difference to the US is that the companies that owns the cables have been forced (by lawmakers) to share that infrastructure with anyone who wants to start an ISP.

My parents in Sweden recently got fiber to their house in the countryside. There's a company that owns the fiber and you pay them ~10 EUR a month. Then you pick your ISP, whichever you want.

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