Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't

Swiss fiber model and its significance

• Switzerland separates passive fiber infrastructure from retail ISPs: a neutral entity lays point‑to‑point fiber (often 4 strands per home), and multiple ISPs compete over it at the central office.
• Commenters frame this like public roads: a shared, regulated “natural monopoly” layer with competition on top for service and price.
• Coverage is not universal: urban areas are strong; rural areas still rely on copper, though targets like ~90% FTTH by 2030–2035 are mentioned. 25 Gbit service is only available in certain areas and via certain ISPs.

US broadband: regulation, monopolies, and the “free market”

• Many argue the US wired market is not “free” but shaped by exclusive franchises, rights‑of‑way, anti‑municipal‑broadband laws, and heavy regulatory capture.
• Courts weakened 1990s unbundling rules, entrenching incumbents’ control over last‑mile infrastructure.
• Some push back, saying the problem is regulation and political manipulation, not markets per se.

Comparisons with other countries

• Examples cited:
  • Australia (NBN’s mixed tech, political reversals, later return to FTTH).
  • UK, Netherlands, Germany: legacy incumbents, slow fiber rollout, messy wholesale rules.
  • Sweden, France: strong FTTH, open‑access models, multi‑ISP choice.
  • Canada: oligopoly with regulated resellers, prices still high.
  • Various rural co‑ops in US and elsewhere doing well with fiber.
• Population density and geography are debated: some say US scale makes Swiss-style rollout harder; others note most people live in dense areas, so size is a weak excuse.

Municipal, co‑op, and community‑led networks

• Many advocate municipal or co‑op fiber, citing successful cases (e.g., Longmont, CO; rural co‑ops; Chattanooga).
• ISPs often lobby for statewide bans or restrictions on community broadband.
• Anecdotes show incumbents upgrading only when faced with (even rumored) competition.

Debate over natural monopolies and free markets

• One camp: infrastructure markets naturally drift to monopoly/oligopoly; only strong regulation or public ownership preserves competition and rural coverage.
• Another camp: monopolies mainly arise from regulation, permitting, and property‑rights barriers; remove distortions and markets can work.
• Broader ideological argument compares “not real free market” defenses to “not real communism.”

Technical clarifications and critiques

• Several note that all internet is shared at some point; “dedicated” lines only guarantee the last mile and better provisioning, not an end‑to‑end personal circuit.
• Most FTTH globally uses PON (shared fiber split among homes); Switzerland’s P2P approach is rare and arguably overkill for typical residential usage.
• Some call the article technically sloppy or ragebait, pointing out limited 25 Gbit availability and emphasizing that congestion often occurs in backhaul/peering, not last mile.

Do consumers need 25 Gbit?

• Many say 1 Gbit (or even 100–200 Mbit) is enough for most households; common bottlenecks are Wi‑Fi, servers, SSD speeds, and application design.
• Others list heavy‑duty use cases: large game downloads, off‑site backups, media production, self‑hosting, remote NFS‑like workflows, LLM model downloads.
• Argument appears that abundant bandwidth changes behavior over time (Jevons‑style): new applications emerge once capacity exists.

Meta: article quality and AI images

• Multiple commenters dislike the “AI‑generated slop” imagery, finding it distracting or credibility‑reducing; others say the explanatory diagrams are useful but decorative images should be dropped.
• Some readers otherwise praise the article’s clarity on natural monopolies and international comparison; others find it conceptually and technically weak or oversimplified.