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Comment by pq0ak2nnd | Hacker News Reader

Let's compare to Manhattan.

Switzerland has the same population as Manhattan.

Switzerland has a population density of 196/km², Manhattan has a population density of 25,846/km².

I'm not absolving the plundering by US Telcos, but there are legit issues as to why cell service quality might differ between a major US metropolis and Switzerland.

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This is an argument against US operators. Higher density means higher utilization and therefore ROI for each cell tower. European cities with higher density than Manhattan have far better mobile and wired internet.

but higher density also means much more interference so it is technically much harder to achieve good speed

Does that apply to ethernet lines though? Those would still be dwarfed by other economies' speeds, right?

Stupid Apple removed the Ethernet jack from my phone.

Hilariously, with their addiction to USB C and dongles, haven't they now provided a reasonable ability to connect Ethernet into your phone?

iPhones still use the lightning port, and Ethernet to lightning ports are a bit on the pricey side.

Also, while I hate t link to a lifehacker article, the lead photo is pretty hilarious in terms of the need for that many adapters to connect an iPad or iPhone to Ethernet and to keep it charged. (https://lifehacker.com/hack-together-a-way-to-connect-an-ipa...) Android isn't much better, but at least it uses a more common and cheaper USB-micro or USB-C.

Not an expert here, but aren't there more constraints such a spectrum if you have more population density? You can only fit some much data in an air band no?

Build more towers. Which ofcourse means investing money and not paying dividends to investors.

I pay €35 per month for unlimited 4G, internet neutrality included.

I think the GP is talking about saturation of the frequency band. "Build more towers" doesn't solve this problem.

It does to a great extent. You provide more towers that each has a smaller coverage area.

Ah, sounds like I'm mistaken then.

Also there is cell sectorization, which is why most cell towers are arranged in triangles of antenna arrays.

> Build more towers.

Not always doable and never free.

Not always doable, but who is asking for free service?

I already pay for shitty service. I would be willing to continue to pay for improved service.

You will also continue to pay for the shitty service if you have no alternatives.

Yup

Case study: South Korea and its population density but still achieving immense success.

This point might make some kind of sense if there were comparable service in areas of the US with approximately 196 people per square km.

But service like this isn't available anywhere in the US, for any population center, at any population density.

It's a red herring. Crappy US telecoms services have little to nothing to do with the population densities of the areas they serve.

Funny, Canadian ISPs defend their price gouging by saying Canada's low population density is to blame...

As do American companies, even after being given subsidies to build out to those companies.

It's even weirder when some of them are executing massive stock buy backs when complaining about the lack of profitability.

Manhattan's population is only ~1.6 million, whereas Switzerland's population is ~8.5 million. During weekdays, Manhattan's population increases to ~4 million.

It would be more correct to compare Switzerland to all of New York City.

Oh sh*t. My mistake, I confused NYC with Manhattan. Thanks.

Sorry, just to clarify this. The argument here is that by having too many customers in a very dense area companies are unable to invest in infrastructure to serve those customers economically?

Serious q: would investing in infrastructure solve this problem? Is there enough bandwidth / switching capacity to cram 8M people into one small area and still have reasonable latencies? I provided the analysis as a reason why there might be an issue, not a definitive claim, which is why I carefully chose my words.

> Switzerland has a population density of 196/km², Manhattan has a population density of 25,846/km².

That would be a valid argument id Switzerland had worse connectiond, but apparently in spite of all the challenges the service is far better.

Amazing! Normally its the US has too low of a population density to possible offer comparable prices to Europe. Now its the opposite. I will never cease to be amazed at the rationalizations.

Please note I chose my words carefully. I was not asserting I was correct, or as you put it "rationalizing", I was asking. Son, snark just makes you look dumb when you don't actually read the post.

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