[forty]

It's always a surprise to me how expensive internet access can be in the US. Here in France 1Gb/700Mb fiber connection costs 30€/month (and this is without commitment and includes TV stuff - "more than 180 channels" whatever that means, and landline phone)

[altairprime]

The US has been specializing in telco monopolies in particular for the past hundred and fifty years or so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_System

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfinity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon

etc.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

The EU invested pretty heavily into making sure even very remote parts of Europe, like northern Finland, have great Internet. I was very pleasantly surprised when I was able to work from home at the in-laws'!

[consteval]

The US invested very heavily too, it's just that the money poof! Disappeared!

[zokier]

Because of these new subsidised fiber deployments, it's not uncommon anymore for rural/semi-rural areas to have better connectivity than urban or sub-urban areas, which is bit awkward.

[sulandor]

thouh there are places near berlin that have to make due with 16mbps dsl

[eertami]

I'm fairly sure that person is Swiss, because CHF converted to USD is ~70USD for 25Gb/25Gb symmetrical Fiber in Switzerland.

Regular 1Gb/1Gb is around 40CHF/40EUR often.

[Moto7451]

Internet speeds and prices are all over the place in the US. I pay $60 per month for 1Gb synchronous fiber (which really performs at 1.2 synchronous, yay me) at my house and $60 per month for 500/30 cable internet at my rental. Two different areas three postal codes apart with different vendors, prices, and products (even when the vendor is available in both).

The way we sliced up space for utilities (lots of legal shared monopolies/guided capitalism) and their desire to build the last mile in their area leads to many different prices and products within a walkable distance. Before that 500/30 service showed up the best we had was unreliable 200/15 from another provider.

[immibis]

I think you mean symmetric fiber

[lambdaba]

it helps that France is the size of Texas

[forty]

I'm not sure size matters that much. Population density does indeed.

[sweeter]

and it varies widely. I pay $170 a month for 30mbps down and 15 up lmao and I have 2 options to choose from who have the exact same service for the exact same price. Telecoms in the US is beyond horrifyingly bad.