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Comment by harrall | Hacker News Reader

This article gets ahead of itself.

The issue isn’t the splitting. There is no fiber to even split in most places. A lot of places in America had their “network” infra built 50-100 years ago on copper and no one wants to pay to basically rebuild all of it.

I happen to live in an area where there are still above ground utilities.

We got >5 gig fiber fast. We have 700Mbps 5G. I literally watched them string the fiber on the poles.

It’s still not shared, but it’s fast because it’s new. Shared would be preferred, but you need destroy + “new” first, and most people are fine with what copper gives them. Shared may even be cheaper but most people don’t think we need to rebuild anything.

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I'ts almost certainly shared. 99% of FTTH is (X)G(S)-PON which shares the fibre over a few properties. Usually something like 32 max.

The Swiss use point to point fibre (there are a few small pockets of this elsewhere). But in reality it is very hard to saturate. XGSPON has 10G/10G shared between the node. GPON has 2.4gbit down/1.2gbit up shared across the node.

In reality point to point is not really a benefit in 99.99% of scenarios, residential internet use cannot saturate 10G/10G for long, even with many 'heavy' internet users (most users can't really get more than >1gig internally over WiFi to start with).

And if it is a problem there is now 50G-PON which can run side by side, so you just add more bandwidth that way.

Residential 2.5gb equipment is just starting to appear as a “default” and 10gb is still pretty rare, though accessible if you want it.

I don’t even have 25gb and I’ve a home lab!

I had 600mbps down/200 up (I could have upgraded to 1GB) and I downgraded to 175 down/50 up (to switch to a more reliable provider) and didn’t notice any difference (family of 4).

Same, I've wired the house for Cat6 and have a Cat6 prosumer switch, so 25 wired devices pulling at 1Gbps?

I clearly set my ambitions too low and should follow the Swiss model :-)

XGSPON is actually 40Gbps down, 10Gbps up. The 40Gbps is actually four separate 10Gbps downlinks on different frequencies. Filters are used so that each customer only sees one of those downlinks. Just a little note.

> In reality point to point is not really a benefit in 99.99% of scenarios, residential internet use cannot saturate 10G/10G for long, even with many 'heavy' internet users (most users can't really get more than >1gig internally over WiFi to start with).

This is so true! The whole thing about Netflix is such a canard. A 4K stream from Netflix tops out at 16Mbps. Other streaming services use 25Mbps, or speeds in between. 40Gbps is 1600 individual 4K streams, but XGSPON can only be split to a maximum of 128 customers. I guess if all of those customers have more than 12 televisions going at once…

You’re more likely to see congestion from many customers all hitting a speed test server at once just to see how shiny the numbers are.

You're confusing XGS-PON with NG-PON2. NG-PON2 isn't really used anywhere AFIAK, the "real" upgrade path is 50G-PON (50G/50G shared). NG-PON2's tunable lasers are expensive so didn't get traction.

Sweden doesn't use much PON either. If a countries fiber build out started before gpon was released or got popular you likely continue a lot with point to point. There's a small drawback, TDM/A for the uplink, introduces some jitter but guessing it's not as bad as cable.

Well a GPON frame is 0.125ms. So the best jitter is ~0.125ms, but even if the entire upstream segment was saturated you'd be looking at probably 1-2ms at absolute worse case. The OLT will not allow one user to hammer the upstream badly like you get with DOCSIS.

So it's really a non issue (XGS-PON is even better as more data per frame means heavy upstream 'clears' the frames quicker), IME consumer routers add more jitter themselves even with ethernet on the LAN side (and WiFi is a lot worse).

Not great but much better than cable. I remember mmthe difference in smokeping as I switched from cable (very oversubscribed as well) to fiber.

Interestingly enough, most providers still run PON, but all their equipment, including splitters, is at the telco's end of the P2P connection. Apparently it is slightly cheaper to build out a PoP like that.

Probably just the equipment is far far cheaper now (customer ONTs and telco OLTs) than point to point is my guess?

Yep, exactly! I live in Switzerland. The article is misleading. Switzerland doesn't have 25 Gbit consumer internet, quite obviously, as nowhere does. It has a state-owned telco that advertises 10 Gbit to ordinary consumers without making it obvious to the buyer that they won't be able to use anything above 1Gbit without exotic and expensive equipment they are near-guaranteed to not have (unless they're literally a high speed networking hobbyist).

I noticed this years ago and thought it was an extremely sharp and therefore unSwiss practice, that in a more free market with better regulation and a more feral press would have already attracted a rap on the knuckles from the truth-in-advertising people. But Swisscom is government owned and has fingers in a thousand pies, so they're allowed to get away with it.

Unfortunately because regular consumers just compare numbers and assume higher is always better, this practice has dragged fully private ISPs into offering it now too. So the entire market is just engaged in systemic consumer fraud by this point. God knows how many people are overpaying for bandwidth their machines literally can't use without realizing it.

That said, the basic point Schüller is making is sound that the fiber cables themselves are more like roads than internet. They aren't a natural monopoly but the cost of overbuild is so high that it makes sense to treat it like one. It's just a pity that in the end this doesn't make a difference as big as the article seems to be advertising in its title.

> A lot of places in America had their “network” infra built 50-100 years ago on copper

That's no different to Switzerland so far…

> and no one wants to pay to basically rebuild all of it.

…but the Swiss seem to have decided it's worth the investment.

> I happen to live in an area where there are still above ground utilities.

If anything, that can make things cheaper. You don't need to bury everything, and in some places (e.g. earthquake prone Japan) it's really counterproductive. But even if it isn't, it's certainly more expensive.

Sent from a 25G internet connection. My laptop only has 10G via TB though.

> …but the Swiss seem to have decided it's worth the investment.

West Virginia is 1.5x the size of the entire country of Switzerland. Let that sink in.

Texas is 16x times bigger.

The idea that it should be doable in a country that is 100x bigger, with 50 separate states, god knows how many individual counties because it could be done in vastly smaller one is where your problem is.

Yet somehow the US did manage to get power to most places...

The thing with fiber is that it can go so much longer than copper without any active components. It is also very future proof, you won't be pulling it out of the ground/off the pole for at least 50 years if not longer.

If size is such an issue, how did you get power?

> Yet somehow the US did manage to get power to most places...

You're not conflating 2 different infrastructure processes and ignoring the one took decades, are you? This is like saying "The US has built a road infrastructure why can't it do all light rails?"

The irony in your comment is that it government intervention, which is the opposite of a free market.

Who said free market? Swisscom is 51% government. A government-ish entity is IMHO the most efficient way to do this.

You can't have 2 road networks, highway systems, or railway networks. You can have, but it is pointless to, 2 water systems or 2 electric grids. Or fire brigades, or police. (criminal, not mall cops) Same applies for fibre in the ground. "Free market" doesn't work when you can't effectively compete.

I'm sorry, but your stance is completely fing ridiculous. First of all, nobody is saying you need to do the entire US in one go by one approach and one provider. Second, the US has about 30× the GDP of Switzerland. Third, have you looked at Swiss geography? They're pulling fiber up the alps to the damn huts. Fourth, they're burying pretty much everything, as I said you don't really have to do that. Fifth, 26 cantons can squabble almost as well as 50 states can. Sixth, you're somehow assuming Switzerland is the only country successfully doing this. Sure, not everyone is doing it to that level, but take a look at Brazil.

If you're looking for reasons to fail, you will fail. The only thing your argument really excuses is that it will take longer. But the US doesn't have the political will to even start.

(Same for Germany, to some degree, btw.)

26 cantons with a functioning federal regulatory mandate isn't remotely comparable to 50 states where broadband regulation has been in a decade long battle over jurisdiction.

> Third, have you looked at Swiss geography? They're pulling fiber up the alps to the damn huts.

This is apples and oranges. The US is vastly more sparse. I think what is "f'ing ridiculous" is continuing to compare the 2 countries in ways they aren't comparable.

I made 4 other points.

> 50 states where broadband regulation has been in a decade long battle over jurisdiction

Thanks for making my point, all I'm arguing is that Switzerland had the political will while the US doesn't (yet?) You're essentially arguing the problem exists because the problem exists.

It's a political problem, but a solvable one. Pretending that it isn't solvable really doesn't help.

I don't have to refute all your points to prove it's impossible.

> It's a political problem, but a solvable one. Pretending that it isn't solvable really doesn't help.

Pretending like you hvae any clue how the US works doesn't help either. There are over 3,000 different counties in the US all with different rules around right-away (which could be one of like 6 different jurisdictions). There are quite literally hundreds of ISPs in the US. And even if one did want to build in NYC for instance, it would be have to interact with dozens of jurisdictions that don't magically go away with a strengthened FCC.

And again, you're totally ignoring the physical geography of the land. So how exactly does that work at a legislative level? Forcing ISP in which communities specifically? Then, it not only becomes a political, but fiscal issue as well.

Which is why saying "it's a political problem" is grossly over-simplifying the situation.

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