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Comment by anal_reactor | Hacker News Reader

In EU the second poorest country has the fastest internet. The richest country cannot provide cellular signal to all of its area.

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It kindof depends when a country did its investment into Internet infrastructure. More western countries did it first and are now stuck with older technologies that limit speed and capacity, where as the less modern countries put that investment in later and therefore have newer technologies like fibre.

Once an investment has been made it's hard to justify making another large investment, or if one is being made it becomes very political and captured by vested interests.

More western countries did it first and are now stuck with older technologies that limit speed and capacity, where as the less modern countries put that investment in later and therefore have newer technologies like fibre.

This is not necessary. These countries are also very rich and can afford to upgrade infrastructure. I am in The Netherlands and have 4Gbit fiber. At the end of 2024 there were 8 million fiber connections, whereas there are 8.4 million households. Heck, even my parents who live in a small remote village can get multi-gig fiber (though they are happy with their 100MBit).

Hey, we finally get fiber in the "richest" country. Telekom just wants to build it to our apartment, for free.

They just need a permission from our landlord, who said no way and blocked the fiber installation. We are stuck with Vodafone only...

I guess it is a better investment for them to smoke us out, renovate this place and rent it with three times more...

Germany? We lived in Germany for five years and internet-wise it felt like going back to the stone age. We paid extra to get 20MBit upstream, but on Saturdays, you'd often only get 1MBit (more downstream of course). Cellular reception was crappy in much of the country (even inside larger cities).

We left Germany in 2018. We have unlimited 4Gbit synchronous fiber and unlimited 5G.

It's better now in Germany. My parents life in the country side and got fiber about one year ago. 600/300 MBit/s for 60€. Not cheap but very stable and always delivers.

I use Vodafone Cable 250/50 MBit/s for around 25€ (discount for new customers). Not very stable but good enough. 1000/50 MBit/s is available but costs 50€.

If you live together with someone you can always switch the contract taker and thus always get the "new" customer benefits to save some money.

Ours blocked Vodafone too. We literally have no wired internet options. Our landlord just forces us to use their extremely slow WiFi

Also in Germany

Is that even legal? I always thought a land-line connection is mandatory.

I recommend to check the law here :)

I don’t think there is any such law, not that I could find. Telekom refuse to make the connection. They say that if it isn’t there when the apartment is built a new one can’t be added. I live in an attic conversion

I just checked. There is no right to a land-line but a general right to being connected. So somebody has to provide you a connection. If nobody does you can message the "Bundesnetzagentur" and they will oblige a provider.

https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Vportal/TK/InternetTelef...

Why would landlord do that, besides "I hate you and go fuck yourself"? He's knowingly reducing the value of his property

In Germany you sign a contract and it is hard to get you out. The rent increases very little while you are there. When you move out they do a quick renovation and charge double or triple the rent you paid.

Makes sense.

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