Switzerland is 1/6 the size of Michigan and has 90 percent as many people as Michigan (9M vs 10M). With a higher population density I'd expect better rollout of things like internet service. And that's just ONE average size US state - there are 50, some of which are larger with even fewer people. It's not really a fair comparison regardless of which business or political factors are in play.
City: just take a walk through manhattan and in a block or two look at the giant open-pit excavation with a 200-year-old morass of undocumented infrastructure under the street. This is before you even try to run fiber up to units in buildings which were built before electricity was standard. I am hardly saying it can't be done, simply that it is not as easy as density makes it seem.
State: the exact opposite problem -- just drive two hours north of NYC and (if you're not still in manhattan) you'll be in some fantastic areas of the state, but, the exact opposite problem exists.
Of note, I do think both of these problems are solvable and we should fundamentally solve them. Just anybody who thinks it's easy or cheap to do so is being myopic. If spent wisely, could be a very useful investment of our money, however.
Do you think the wilds two hours north of NYC are more or less difficult for laying fibre lines than between homes literally in the alps? 60% of switzerland is alps. Not exactly a cake walk for infrastructure development.
And why would they need open pit excavation for FTTH in NYC? Are there not existing trenches and under-street ducting for cables already in most of the city? Surely there are going to be some tricky areas but how to the other utilities like phones and electric work on their cabling?
I was wondering why there wasn't yet a comment dismissing any change or progress in the US citing its land size, forgetting that the US has hundreds of large, dense cities where this "argument" does no hold.
> forgetting that the US has hundreds of large, dense cities
Those large US cities really aren't anywhere near as dense though once you're comparing the actual MSA (US) or FUA (EU). The population densities of those actual whole areas are nowhere near the same.
For comparison relevant to this article, only 25% of the Swiss population live in single family detached houses. About 60% of US households live in single-family detached housing.
Zurich and Milwaukee both have ~1.5M people in their Functional Urban Area/Metropolitan Statistical Area. One has a density of ~750/km^2 and the other is ~418. Guess which is which. Or compare Lausanne to Modesto CA. Both have ~550k populations. One 637/km^2, one is 144/km^2.
Such big and dense cities we have here in the US!
Either way though, I do think its often less to do with population densities and more about political will of the local populace and regulatory capture.
I have family that lives in a pretty newly developed area in the middle of an already well-developed area with tons of homes having fiber-to-the-home. The local cable company managed to convince the builder to let only them install coax services to these homes. Now it will cost the fiber company a lot more if they want to eventually go into that neighborhood, so they haven't bothered.
You see the same thing with pole attachment rights in our cities. Incumbents shut down competition and prevent those who push for change.
