89 karma · joined November 13, 2015
For example:
Fremdschämen To be embarrassed by something somebody else did German
Myötähäpeä in Finnish (alongshame when literally translated)
In Finland, unsubsidized, undiscounted and no questions asked, just pay prices for scans from a private health company are 258€.
Expensive, yes. Crazy expensive, no.
That's not a sabbatical, that's a normal summer vacation in Europe :)
That doesn't mean that the German laws about liability for offering connectivity don't suck.
You don't really believe that, now do you?
Clearing the usage of new frequency bands is a huge regulatory undertaking involving multiple countries. It takes years and massive effort even when there is a very strong will and a clear need.
Consumer prices.
Geographical coverage.
Unlimited and unrestricted usage.
> If you look at the actual coverage map Finland isn't considerably better than most countries including the US, 4G+ is available in a few hotspots only, and the LTE and 3G coverage is pretty similar.
How did you perform this comparison? I find this claim very unlikely to be correct.
> The 4G+ 300mbit plans from Elisa cost 60 Euros a month without a device, I haven't seen anything so far that is that unusual
This is incorrect.
DNA 300M plan is 30€ per month. Elisa and Sonera are 50€ Per month. All plans without a contract, quotas or limits.
300M are premium flagship plans with a premium price. 100M plan are like 15€.
Starter plans with 50 minutes of talk time and 0,25 Mbps of uncapped, unlimited and unrestricted usage are free on Sonera's network.
What other country comes even close?
Tell that to somebody who would have to rely on satellite if it were not for Ukko. And it's not like you can't run your choice of VoIP over that.
Ukko is an MNO, not an MVNO. They hold a national license for the 450 MHz band which they use to provide data services in all of Finland.
Here is their coverage map: http://www.ukkoverkot.fi/kuuluvuus/
> If they indeed operate on the LTE 31 band this also means they are a speciality carrier which also means they have to provide you with their own devices since I'm not aware of any mass market consumer device which supports B31
Correct.
> The cellular spectrum especially in regards to 4G LTE channels is pretty damn large, and most countries started with more than 3-4 cellular providers they just had decades of consolidation since then.
Not all LTE bands are available in all countries.
The difference is that Finland has effective competition, whereas other countries have nominal competition.
A good and effective regulative authority has definitely helped, but the fact that Finnish operators actually both invest and compete makes for all the difference.
Regulation in Finland defines what broadband speeds are acceptable. This includes mobile broadband. Acceptable speeds are a minimum of 50% of top speeds using a 4 hour average or a minimum of 40% of top speeds at any time.
And this regulation is enforced.
There are five mobile operators in Finland: Elisa, Sonera, DNA, Ålcom and Ukko Mobile.
There are lots and lots of wireline operators.
> If you exclude MVNO's most countries have pretty similar number of mobile and broadband providers.
There are similar numbers of mobile operators in most countries because there is only so much spectrum to go around. However there is a great deal of difference in the amount of wireline broadband providers per country.
The telcos are of course under no obligation to invest in 5G. Do you know of any 4G provider that isn't?
Yes, I know it's not ideal, but at least it's possible.
No it wasn't. The thread starter discussed how broadband connections should be marketed, and the suggestion was to use guaranteed bandwidth as a measure.
This then digressed into the cost of bandwidth, where one poster took it totally off the rails by assuming transit costs $25 per Mbps, when the true cost is two decades lower.
The fixed cost of providing guaranteed bandwidth in the last mile pales compared to costs like $25 per Mbps, which was my point. The last mile is a fixed cost and even high amounts of guaranteed bandwidth in the last mile are fixed costs which are easily covered by the monthly subscription fee.
That does not mean that the fixed costs are free or low by absolute dollar terms.
So there.
Net neutrality is (partial) remedy for lack of competition. Cure that and a lot of the reasons for net neutrality disappear. However, it is not realistic to expect true competition in the US telecoms market anytime soon.
One reason a lot of people see net neutrality as a solution in search of a problem is that net neutrality was the default before and it hasn't been egregiously abused to date. I'm sure a lot of people will agree it's a problem once they get some first hand experience of it.
> Hypothetically, ISPs could try extorting and controlling the entire internet, but realistically it's not going to work.
I don't know. Comcast seems to be doing a pretty good job at it in the US.
> I'm more concerned about app neutrality. Apple is extorting 30% from app makers and enforces rules to ensure their dominance over my phone.
You do know you can sideload apps on your phone?
This is not a technical problem, but a business decision. The at only solution is to vote with your wallet and chose an ISP that sucks less.
So fixed costs all around.
The marketplace doesn't work that way. Neither Netflix or any other content provider has any interest in paying any ISP for the pleasure of serving their customers. Netflix would just refuse to pay the low cost ISP and tell it's customers to change ISPs if they complain.
The only reason Netflix is paying Comcast is because Comcast has enough market power and captive users to blackmail Netflix into paying them, lest Netflix be denied access. If there was any alternative to Comcast, Netflix would just say screw that.
The Internet doesn't work that way. If Google wants their services to work better at particular ISP they pay for bigger pipes to the ISP and/or install content caches at the ISP and everybody is better off.