The Internet in Greece
greekanalyst.substack.com
greekanalyst.substack.com
That's the impression I've got when I traveled to Greece and I've seen far less Greeks with their noses stuck in their mobile phones than tourists.
The problem with the internet in Greece is fundamentally a combo of bad infrastructure (due to belated investment), high taxes (on internet services) and terrible market dynamics (an oligopolistic industry after intense consolidation).
If you are a tourist or a Greek on holiday, perhaps it's great to disconnect. But if your work depends on it, that's a very different story.
It's 2024, internet is not used only for Netflix, but is a must have in our daily lives
It has the highest number of work hours per week in any EU country. Many worker are only part time employees, but expected to work full time...
Also , please don't confuse what the tourist guides tell you about greece with reality. Greeks are normal people with normal anxieties and ambitions as everywhere. The Lazy lifestyle trope is somethign that s good for tourism ads, but not a way of life.
Ask all the younger Greeks that had to leave their country and come over to Germany what they think about their Internet.
Ask how many of them have a home-based job in the UK, Denmark or Germany, but feel they can not go back simply because they don't have a minimally decent internet infrastructure to be doing fully remote work.
Ask a small hotel owner in one of the islands about their plan of turning their property into a "hacker house" in the off-season.
Of course, it's not the only thing that is lacking in Greece. But I can guarantee you that is one of the things that is holding it back.
Of course, my experience has a 10+ year gap now, things have definitely grown in Greece as OP has highlighted in the post, but I remember still having 100+ ping while connecting to European servers. Nowadays from Cape Town I "only" hit 150.
Maybe instead they should look into making their hotels into "doctor house", or "teacher house" or generally "something affordable by public workers" so that people who move to the island to do their job can have a reasonable life without competing with north EU nomads for living space.
I got here (town of less then 25k souls) 100Mbps (the least I could realistically chose) last year, RTT to nearest google server is 22ms (116ms to Amazon though). There's some commotion in town to get us each 1Gbps (which is IMHO absurd). Took a while to install it (partly due to history of the premise), but I don't think it has been down since I got it.
Honestly, if it is any worse than Internet in the S.F. Bay area, I haven't noticed it yet.
Cloudflare Radar has a section on Internet quality that can show graphs per country and also at the ASN level. Here's what it shows for Greece:
I get all the island life and stuff, but really, trying to do real remote work from there in interactive terminals... not fun at all.
This summer, the first day we noticed the connection getting spotty we bit the bullet and got a Starlink. Smooth sailing ever since, like holy shit what an upgrade. Chatting a little more with a client that does various installations in tourist places, hotels and stuff, he told he's been basically setting up Starlinks everywhere for the past 6 months or so.
Same goes for banking, which is exorbitantly expensive and anticompetitive (aided by state laws that make banking services mandatory for businesses).
Unless the economy opens up to foreign compeition which will drive prices down and services up, it will remain a soviet-like small state
Unfortunately, all relevant watchdogs are unable or unwilling to ensure the proper functioning of the market, which is free only on paper for some key industries (banking, internet/mobile services, supermarkets, ferries, energy, etc.).
It reminded me of all the restaurant toilets in Athens that instructed you to throw your used toilet paper in the trash and not down the antiquated drainpipes. No blame no shame. It is what it is in one of the oldest cities.
Tokyo used to be like this too in 2014.
Starlink must be making a killing in places like this.
Meanwhile, it's good, because you can really rest and enjoy Greece! Yeah, if you forgot, you can post the photos and videos later!
Seems enough for browsing the internet, online banking, emails, some social media, and watching videos in standard definition.
That sounds like enough for the average person. :)
When your internet speed map looks like a topographical map, you need to adjust your colours.
Starlink terminals are a great indicator for low trust societies
My experience is pretty positive overall. Internet speeds are fairly fast, not exceptional and not cheap, but widely available. The interesting thing with the internet is how there can be a certain envy when it comes to internet speed, both with individuals and between countries. But even as someone who has a >1Gb internet connection in the UK, I don't have a big problem changing to slower speeds in Greece. Ultimately, when you have good broadband coverage, there's a certain law of diminishing returns to increasing the speed. I totally don't need 1Gbps speeds, I do fine with Pappous' ~45Mbps VDSL and actually the house we use when we visit has only a 15Mbps link to my father in law's house. My wife and I work from there, and when the internet works, it's just enough. It's too easy for me to say "ah, but you don't need gigabit" but lets also be pragmatic and ask if Greeks all need superfast broadband? Probably not.
I do have problems with the broadband reliability in the mountains of Greece, or rather my father in law does, we know there's a bad line-card but getting OTE to permanently sort it out and not just reboot the line-card when we complain is annoying. One day they'll actually fix the line card and we'll get reliable VDSL, again, in a village with more goats than people.
One thing that annoys me more than anything is that the 5G tariffs could definitely be more competitive. Instead of borrowing my FIL's broadband using a questionable WiFi link, I'd like broadband. Getting a VDSL connection for a holiday home is relatively expensive and for some ridiculous reason, OTE don't want to run the cable anyway. So, 5G? Except I want continuous connectivity through the year, but when we're there I want a lot of data just for a month at a time. Nope, all or nothing. And the PAYG tariffs don't accumulate allowances each month, so I can't get a 5GB tariff, save up the GB allowance to use at Easter/Summer/Christmas/etc). The PAYG tariffs are weirdly now just subscriptions without an annual commitment and flexible payment options.
We looked at Starlink, but again, as this is a holiday home but one which is connected, I don't want to pay full-rate all the time, but there's not a way of turning the connection down, to say 4Mbps, when you don't want full service. Same as the incumbent broadband providers, they need to recognise that a holiday home is now an IoT home and provide something more than on/off provisions.
One day I might like to work on infrastructure in Greece, perhaps I'll get a job there one day or start a business there one day.
Or from my 5G unlimited data for 9 euros p/m plan.
The market will balance itself and leaving it free is always better, go neoliberalism!
“go neoliberalism”
Did you forget an “/s”?
Updated my comment to reflect that.
When you have Tim at home you subscribe to https://www.tim.it/fisso-e-mobile/mobile/5g-famiglia and add the number to the landline family of numbers to get unlimited internet
And Tim is the main isp in Italy with best coverage and speed
I mean at the moment the choice for young Greeks is basically government work, hospitality, or move abroad.
It isn't easy, though.
The author of the post thoroughly covers the Greek startup & tech ecosystem.
It's growing, impressively so considering the last decade, but is going to be hitting limits like these internet speed issues if it's going to keep growing.
- Sent from my phone, which is glued to the window because it's the only spot where i can get enough bars for my mobile connection. I 'm waiting for the landline (50mbps DSL) for 4 months.