Post #1145733

2026-04-14 06:17 UTC

I never bothered to wonder why my sister in Germany has lousy Internet where as I declined to upgrade my 1 Gbit/s to 10 Gbit/s because we don't need it. "You may have heard about 25 Gbit symmetrical internet in Switzerland. This is often cited as the fastest dedicated (non-shared) residential connection in the world. However, did you ever wonder why Switzerland has such fast internet at a reasonable price … ?" -- The Free Market Lie: Why Switzerland Has 25 Gbit Internet and America Doesn't The answer is that in Switzerland, fibre is treated as infrastructure -- like water, like electricity. That is to say, the providers don't put down their own cables. One company puts down the cables and then all the providers get access to it. End users get to pick the provider they want. Interestingly, the article then goes on to say that the regulation leading to this was spearheaded by Swisscom in 2008 who tried to change course in 2020. Init7, one of the providers, took Swisscom to court. In 2024, the case had gone through all the layers and Init7 won. The old regulation stayed in place. Incidentally, one of the reasons I'm a happy #Init7 customer.

Replies (2)

@edavies@functional.cafe 2026-04-14 09:18

@alex It's supposed to work more-or-less the same in most of the UK: Openreach (who were part of British Telecom - not sure how separate they are now) were supposed to do all the last-mile stuff. They've been so slow, though, that other companies are doing it now. E.g., the site of the house I was building has Openreach fibre in the road outside but the village I'm renting in doesn't have any fibre yet. An independent company (Highland Broadband) say they'll be putting it in by the end of the summer. So, currently I only have VDSL (22Mb/s down, 1.5Mb/s up) for £45/month (about the same in CHF). I'm hoping for 500Mb/s symmetric for a few £ less/month by the end of the year.

Open ##1983644
@datacyclist@swiss.social 2026-04-14 13:17

@alex I live in 9500 Wil and I don't have that free fiber choice yet. It's still the local monopolist Thurcom with shitty prices on their fiber network and it's either them or no fiber. I will therefore get another physical fiber connection to my house, built by Swisscom/Circet, in autumn this year. Then I can choose between providers and I'm sure that Thurcom's prices will go down, too. Currently I'm using a 5G connection which has more than 1 Gbit/s downstream. Not using the thurcom fiber 😄

Open ##1983645