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Comment by phamilton | Hacker News Reader

The big issue is that the US is so big. They talk about the new 4g in nordic countries. That would be like Verizon rolling out screaming fast 4g only in California, and leaving the rest of the country on 3g. That just wouldn't work.

Building a 4g network across the entire US is a big deal.

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> That would be like Verizon rolling out screaming fast 4g only in California, and leaving the rest of the country on 3g. That just wouldn't work.

Well if that were the case, shouldn't they have rolled out 4G at least in California & New York? Ironically, those are the places with the worst cell service.

well.. not the best example. California and New York combined have 3-4 times the population of all the Nordic Countries.

Actually, California & New York have 2.2 times the population[0] while having 2.1 times the GDP[1], so I really don't see how that's all that relevant.

Or how about we look at their relative land areas[2] (not counting Greenland) - California & New York only have 41% as much area as the Nordic Countries.

0: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=((california+population...

1: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(california+%2B+new+yor...

2: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=((california+state+area...)

Exactly. It should be easier AND cheaper to roll out the better wireless where there are more, wealthier people and where there is greater density.

The fact that wireless sucks in the big cities of the US is indicative of crappy service, not technical challenges.

The term "big" doesn't really mean anything. The US has a higher population density. Per person served, it would be cheaper to cover the US than the Nordic countries.

Wow, I hadn't realized that. Yes, that's true: the US as a whole has about twice the population density as Scandinavia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_and_population_of_European...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_populati...

This makes Sweden, Norway and Finland roughly comparable in density to Colorado, Maine, and Oregon, which we tend to think of as relatively spacious states. By contrast, each is about the size of California, which has 5-6x the population density.

While that is true, European cities tend to be more compact, with more 'empty space' between them. When I moved to the US, the concept of 'urban sprawl' was completely new to me.

This should increase the meaningful population density, as there is little need to have high bandwidth in uninhabited areas.

People keep saying that... And meanwhile, you can barely make a call in New York City during peak hours.

How exactly is it a big deal? You managed to build a GSM network across the entire US. Then you managed to build an EDGE network across the entire US. Then you managed to build a 3G network across the entire US. Why can't you now all of the sudden build an LTE/"real 4G" network across the entire US? This suite of excuses is the same song of complaint that the american operators return to every year. Oddly, not a single operator in any European country has made a squeak about any of the mobile network generations. Ever.

That's a bullshit excuse.

I live in one of the largest cities in the USA. AT&T's 3G sucks here. If I go 15 miles west of here, it's suddenly way faster. This is entirely because AT&T doesn't invest in backhaul infrastructue. It's got nothing to do with the density the country, and everything to do with the lousy infrastructure investments of the wireless carriers.

Wireless in this country sucks cause we don't demand better. If it's socialist to want my government to go after these bloodsucking bastards and make them provide better service for the exorbitant fees they charge, I'm content to wear the red armband everywhere.

Actually, European carriers are often required to let other providers use their network infrastructure at wholesale rates. Hence, if they are expensive, they will get competition from within their own network.

Contrast this with the network monopolies in the US where every (both!) carrier can just make up prices and there is nothing any customer can do about it. This is most certainly why prices are so high in the US and why carriers see little incentive to upgrade their infrastructure.

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