Wow the US really has it bad when it comes to home internet. In many European countries, you can get symmetric Gbit internet for 30-40 EUR (probably less in some places), and I haven't seen a data cap in forever.
Wow the US really has it bad when it comes to home internet. In many European countries, you can get symmetric Gbit internet for 30-40 EUR (probably less in some places), and I haven't seen a data cap in forever.
The EU is better on average, but isn't universally great either. I pay 60 EUR for 200Mbit down/20Mbit up ADSL in Amsterdam, after my 6-month discount ran out. No fiber in my neighborhood yet. There's one gigabit provider in my neighborhood (Ziggo) and they have a bad reputation. For the same price I was getting FiOS gigabit in NYC.
Would it make you jealous if I tell you, that I get 10 Gbit symmetric fiber here in Switzerland (greater Zurich area) for roughly 80 USD/month with no data cap? And I can use my own router and could even go up to 25 Gbit if I want ;-) Oh, and did I mention no CGNAT and it comes with a static /48 IPv6 net?
You are talking about init7, and they did have to fight tooth and nail and take it to court to get SwissCom to provide reasonable access to the fiber.
IIRC, Init7 explained that basically the internet wants to be fast, but ISPs want to spend lots of money on special equipment to slow down your internet so that they can sell speed tiers and data caps.
The US is much more captured that Switzerland, of course. Providers in the US get billions of dollars to expand their networks and provide service, and then don't provide the service, and nothing happens.
To be honest, I'm significantly more envious of 1gig for $40 than 10gig for $80.
And my drives aren't fast enough for 25.
Depends on where in the US. Most populated places have inexpensive internet. Smaller towns have these issues because there's not much competition.
It's getting better here. Google Fiber is expanding to a lot of cities and their symmetric Gbit with no data cap is the equivalent of 60 EUR ($70).
Here symmetric 4Gbit without a data cap (NL). Best of all, you can bring your own equipment. I have my Ubiquiti Gateway Max hooked up to fiber with a media converter (yes, the Gateway Max does PPPoE etc.).
My parents live in a small, countryside village. They have fiber at the same prices (including 4Gbit symmetric, though they are happy with a cheap 200Mbit subscription).
Bay Area has sonic.net with unlimited 10Gb down & 1Gb up for only $40.
I don't think sonic has asymmetric internet anywhere. It used to be symmetric gig, now they're deploying symmetric 10gig. And the price is $49, although they just announced an increase to $59.
I had symmetric 10Gb for over a year, until they sent a new modem. When I tested the speed again, it was asymmetric. I figure it's the new modem, but the change may have been made before. I don't usually upload >1Gb, so I didn't notice when it actually happened.
*parts of the Bay Area. I'd say the majority of areas are still monopolized by Comcast, including my neighborhood of course.
If you haven't already, check to see if either Google Fiber or Monkeybrains is available in your area. Last I checked, the regs are still in place that prevent landlords from denying you access to an ISP of your choice.
Google Fiber isn't rolled out to most of the bay area. Monkeybrains is wireless with speeds significantly slower than what Comcast offers me. I've checked just about every wired ISP possible, and Comcast is the only option that services my neighborhood.
And FWIW, I own my house in the east bay — I am the landlady ;)
> Google Fiber isn't rolled out to most of the bay area.
I'm aware. And it's my understanding that -sadly- much of the Google "Fiber" deployment in the area is a WISP, just like Monkeybrains is. Quite a while back, Google Fiber bought Webpass and continued doing WISP deployment in the SFBA under the Google Fiber brand. (Because it's politically dreadfully hard to run fiber optic cables in the area.)
If you haven't contacted Monkeybrains for a minimum and expected speed quote at your site in a year or five, it's worth doing it again. It's my understanding that they aperiodically upgrade the hardware in their core network as well as the sort of hardware that they deploy at customer sites.
Monkeybrains' down-to 100/100 service is -on paper- far, far slower than the up-to 1400/40 service I was getting from Comcast, but the actual, delivered speed that I'm seeing from Monkeybrains varies between 300mbit and ~1000mbit (sustained) depending on what other folks are doing on their network. [0] I'm in a fifty-apartment building, so it's possible that they've installed faster gear on my roof than they install in smaller (or single-family) buildings. Reports on the Internet seem to be somewhat mixed, with some single-family buildings reporting ~1gbit service, and others reporting ~45mbit.
[0] Typical prime-time speed is something like 400mbit. Off-hours speed is frequently very close to 1gbit. The only time I've seen the minimum speed was when I had a poorly-crimped Ethernet cable between my router and the rest of my LAN that would intermittently only link up at 100mbit.
Seconding monkeybrains - they can usually get to houses that the other ISPs can't/won't service, and speed is pretty spiffy