Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month(fiber7.ch)
fiber7.ch
Swiss ISP init7 launches unlimited symmetrical gbit FTTH for $73/month
https://www.fiber7.ch/
58 comments
Wouldn't it be for the EWZ we would still be waiting for fiber.
I remember clearly how the telecoms, most notably Swisscom, argued that it was overkill and not necessary.
The telecoms also invested into massive lobbying efforts and an intense advertising blitz in order to kill the necessary referendums. (At least the first, I think when it came to the second referendum covering the rest of the city they where pretty mute. But then Swisscom was already in the boat).
The referendums where necessary, since the voting public needed to decide if the city owned utility is allowed to invest the money. Both referendums sailed pretty much through in a landslide.
Basically all public utilities in Zurich are city owned and operated. And while it may appear weird in other parts of the world, people here actually love their public utilities.
This probably has to do with really high service quality being quite reasonably priced. But I digress.
I remember clearly how the telecoms, most notably Swisscom, argued that it was overkill and not necessary.
The telecoms also invested into massive lobbying efforts and an intense advertising blitz in order to kill the necessary referendums. (At least the first, I think when it came to the second referendum covering the rest of the city they where pretty mute. But then Swisscom was already in the boat).
The referendums where necessary, since the voting public needed to decide if the city owned utility is allowed to invest the money. Both referendums sailed pretty much through in a landslide.
Basically all public utilities in Zurich are city owned and operated. And while it may appear weird in other parts of the world, people here actually love their public utilities.
This probably has to do with really high service quality being quite reasonably priced. But I digress.
> Basically all public utilities in Zurich are city owned and operated. And while it may appear weird in other parts of the world, people here actually love their public utilities. This probably has to do with really high service quality being quite reasonably priced. But I digress.
Here in the states, our public utilities are more often than not of poor quality for the price. For example, I lived in Atlanta, GA for many years. Much of its sewer system dates to the rebuilding of the city after the Civil War. It's in violation of federal environmental laws, and when it rains too much it overflows and dumps untreated sewage into the local river.
I'm not sure why municipal services are so bad in the states versus in parts of Europe. After all, there's no private water/sewer company lobbying to blame for the water/sewer system in Atlanta (or Chicago or D.C. or the numerous U.S. cities with similar problems). I suspect it has to do with the locus of power vis-a-vis urban and suburban voters in the U.S. versus Europe. That is to say, most U.S. metro areas take the form of poorer central cities supported by wealthier suburbs, at least to a greater degree than I think is true in Europe.[1] Thus, there is less concentrated political will, as well as less money, to spent on infrastructure within cities.
Regardless of the reasons, I think many people in the U.S. are justifiably skeptical of public utilities. I personally would very much trust the city of Zurich to build my internet infrastructure. I wouldn't so much trust Atlanta, or Wilmington, or Philadelphia, or Baltimore . . . maybe Chicago or New York City. I say this as someone who has lived or worked in these cities, and relied on the municipal infrastructure more than the vast majority of Americans (because I take public transit and don't like to drive).
[1] For example: Atlanta has a core city only a little bit larger than Zurich proper (though only 1/3 as dense), but has a metro area 3x as large as the Zurich metro area. The vast majority of the wealthy voters in Atlanta live in the surrounding suburbs. Thus, funding for road construction to get these folks to and from work in the city takes priority over funding for services used by people who reside in the city.
Here in the states, our public utilities are more often than not of poor quality for the price. For example, I lived in Atlanta, GA for many years. Much of its sewer system dates to the rebuilding of the city after the Civil War. It's in violation of federal environmental laws, and when it rains too much it overflows and dumps untreated sewage into the local river.
I'm not sure why municipal services are so bad in the states versus in parts of Europe. After all, there's no private water/sewer company lobbying to blame for the water/sewer system in Atlanta (or Chicago or D.C. or the numerous U.S. cities with similar problems). I suspect it has to do with the locus of power vis-a-vis urban and suburban voters in the U.S. versus Europe. That is to say, most U.S. metro areas take the form of poorer central cities supported by wealthier suburbs, at least to a greater degree than I think is true in Europe.[1] Thus, there is less concentrated political will, as well as less money, to spent on infrastructure within cities.
Regardless of the reasons, I think many people in the U.S. are justifiably skeptical of public utilities. I personally would very much trust the city of Zurich to build my internet infrastructure. I wouldn't so much trust Atlanta, or Wilmington, or Philadelphia, or Baltimore . . . maybe Chicago or New York City. I say this as someone who has lived or worked in these cities, and relied on the municipal infrastructure more than the vast majority of Americans (because I take public transit and don't like to drive).
[1] For example: Atlanta has a core city only a little bit larger than Zurich proper (though only 1/3 as dense), but has a metro area 3x as large as the Zurich metro area. The vast majority of the wealthy voters in Atlanta live in the surrounding suburbs. Thus, funding for road construction to get these folks to and from work in the city takes priority over funding for services used by people who reside in the city.
In this case though, this offering isn't using the fiber we voted for:
>Im Gegensatz zu anderen FTTH Angeboten, die auf Layer-2 Plattformen von städtischen Werken basieren, benutzt Fiber7 eine komplett eigene Internet-Infrastruktur. (https://www.fiber7.ch/fiber7-verfugbarkeit/)
Loosely translated this means that they are using their own infrastructure not based on what the EWZ has already built.
Considering how hard it is to get permission to dig holes around here, I wonder how the hell they have done this.
>Im Gegensatz zu anderen FTTH Angeboten, die auf Layer-2 Plattformen von städtischen Werken basieren, benutzt Fiber7 eine komplett eigene Internet-Infrastruktur. (https://www.fiber7.ch/fiber7-verfugbarkeit/)
Loosely translated this means that they are using their own infrastructure not based on what the EWZ has already built.
Considering how hard it is to get permission to dig holes around here, I wonder how the hell they have done this.
I think you've misread that. They don't use the layer 2 of EWZ, but they do use the fibers (layer 1).
>Im Gegensatz zu anderen FTTH Angeboten, die auf Layer-2 Plattformen von städtischen Werken basieren, benutzt Fiber7 eine komplett eigene Internet-Infrastruktur. (https://www.fiber7.ch/fiber7-verfugbarkeit/)
I think you misread that he misread that. It translates to this:
"Contrary to other fiber-to-the-home offers, which are based on Layer-2 platforms by the municipal works, fiber7 uses an infrastructure all its own.".
That strongly implies they use different fibers.
I think you misread that he misread that. It translates to this:
"Contrary to other fiber-to-the-home offers, which are based on Layer-2 platforms by the municipal works, fiber7 uses an infrastructure all its own.".
That strongly implies they use different fibers.
It also says: "Fiber7 basiert auf dem Ausbau von Glasfaser-Infrastruktur (sogenannter Layer 1), den die ehemalige Monopolistin und verschiedene städtische Energie-Werke seit einigen Jahren vornehmen."
I assume that the FTTH are what the EWZ and others built, but then the connection to the backbone etc. is their own, and not the shared one that the EWZ offers for other providers. Not sure how this technically works but obviously init7 doesn't have their own fibers to every customer.
I assume that the FTTH are what the EWZ and others built, but then the connection to the backbone etc. is their own, and not the shared one that the EWZ offers for other providers. Not sure how this technically works but obviously init7 doesn't have their own fibers to every customer.
Tangentially related: Init7 is one of the few providers here in Switzerland that offer native IPv6 connectivity to end-users (they might be the only one offering it to end-users).
This makes this already amazing offering doubly interesting because it would finally allow me to play with native IPv6
This makes this already amazing offering doubly interesting because it would finally allow me to play with native IPv6
Init7 is the ISP that we (rsync.net) have been using in Zurich since 2007, and we highly recommend them.
I'm very glad to see it happening. Finally we might catch up with Baltic countries...
Switzerland has the money and a population that isn't particularly hard to cover thoroughly compared to some nearby countries. Yet we wasted nearly 15 years in some cantons arguing about roles and responsibilities, while it was pretty clear that local utility companies need to be in charge of horizontal fiber deployment, and the ISPs of the rest, preferably without bitching about the costs of vertical deployment. Sadly our politicians are apparently more interested in letting UPC have nearly full control over the cable network, as long as the duopoly situation allows for ridiculous profits and dividends from Swisscom.
Switzerland has the money and a population that isn't particularly hard to cover thoroughly compared to some nearby countries. Yet we wasted nearly 15 years in some cantons arguing about roles and responsibilities, while it was pretty clear that local utility companies need to be in charge of horizontal fiber deployment, and the ISPs of the rest, preferably without bitching about the costs of vertical deployment. Sadly our politicians are apparently more interested in letting UPC have nearly full control over the cable network, as long as the duopoly situation allows for ridiculous profits and dividends from Swisscom.
Living in the canton of Zurich and having my office in Dübendorf this makes me happy! :)
We are currently paying about 250$ for 10Mbit/s symmectrical fiber.
I'm living in Rüti (which is about 30 km from Dübendorf but still in the canton of Zürich). If I do the availability-check on the fiber7-page it returns something like "that's a black-hole for us" - I'm not surprised.
The provider Tweak here in the Netherlands is also launching symmetrical 1Gb/s FTTH in select cities:
http://www.tweak.nl/consument/fiber/productoverzicht_odf.htm...
http://www.tweak.nl/consument/fiber/productoverzicht_odf.htm...
Damn, I'm paying $80/month here in Australia for 3 mbit/s. The local exchange has been maxxed out for the last 10 years. Its possible we have the worst Internet of all developed countries.
I'm paying a bit more ($89/month) for unlimited 100/40mbit on the NBN. Consider moving! (That's Turnbull's advice>
https://www.fiber7.ch/fiber7-bestellen/
https://www.fiber7.ch/fiber7-verfugbarkeit/
Django with DEBUG = True in production.
Django with DEBUG = True in production.
Wow, thats a lot of debug info.
Seems to be fixed now.
Have much capacity do they have to offload that traffic, I imagine they have largest ports on peering exchanges locally, with some other local private peering, and perhaps they got some backhaul to AMS-IX, LINX and others, but you can read the issues peering exchanges are facing with capacity and the cost of highest 100G ports (where available). How much transit do they have to carry the rest? I jut cant see this being feasible unless its p2p on their own network. Last mile is only a small part of the problem.
init7, the company behind fiber7, has already a pretty good peering and international pops: http://www.init7.net/en/backbone/
Yes, init7 is a serious provider with real peering and a global presence. My impression (as their datacenter/IP customer) is that they've been putting this together for a few years...
Seoul, South Korea. Gigabit internet is available for ~$18/month.
Same price (~$18) for gigabit internet in Romania, but it's not symmetrical.
I saw a Steam (Valve) graph for Dota 2 download speeds. Roughly 8 million players, spread across the world, quite evenly.
The "fastest" countries were South Korea, Sweden, the Netherlands and Romania.
We might be lacking quite a few things, but Internet speed is not one of them :)
The "fastest" countries were South Korea, Sweden, the Netherlands and Romania.
We might be lacking quite a few things, but Internet speed is not one of them :)
Hmm, Swisscom have been waving FTTH here (Winti..) for the past few months, and I've seen lots of workers actually laying cable, but nothing to the actual apartment yet..
Fortunately I work for a Swisscom owned co. so there are some benefits that hopefully will eventually trickle down, otherwise I think I'd be very tempted by init7's offer (we also use them at work, and they're a good bunch).
Fortunately I work for a Swisscom owned co. so there are some benefits that hopefully will eventually trickle down, otherwise I think I'd be very tempted by init7's offer (we also use them at work, and they're a good bunch).
Swisscom FTTH is available in my building (Biel/Bienne), but at the moment the price is too steep plus you need to have the Vivo XL package to be eligible [1]. That brings the whole TV + Phone + 1Gbps/100Mbps internet at 169 + 80 = 249 CHF / month. I like fast Internet but not THAT much !
[1] http://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/packages/options/1giga...
[1] http://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/packages/options/1giga...
Love it, hopefully they'll add coverage for the French part of Switzerland too, or else I'll have to consider moving cantons :)
Well that shits on my 12Mbit/1Mbit here in London that costs nearly that much...
Where in London are you and which provider are you with? Pretty much all cabinets in London now support FTTC so it should be pretty easy to get 80/20 and plenty of ISPs are offering unlimited FTTC for around £20/month. You might want to consider switching.
South West near Kingston. Andrews and Arnold. Unfortunately for some reason we can't get FTTC. I think its an issue with the cabinet near me which looks like it has been run over by a bus. The local exchange is also an ancient branch exchange so it may not have the capacity.
Ouch. It's 200/10 mbit/s here in Dublin, for the same amount of money (well, for the first 12 months at least)...
That's pretty bad - we get 40/10 (actual speeds) here in Edinburgh for £25 a month.
There is a nice "gigabit community" being built in Sout Carolina near Charleston: http://www.nextonsc.com/gigafi/
Interesting. This looks like the same concept as the community in which I reside: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daybreak_(community)
Every home has fiber, but the bandwidth is throttled to about 12/4mbit by Century Link, which is the contracted provider. This contract expires soon, so hopefully we'll be able to negotiate better speeds.
Every home has fiber, but the bandwidth is throttled to about 12/4mbit by Century Link, which is the contracted provider. This contract expires soon, so hopefully we'll be able to negotiate better speeds.
Yes, FTTH itself is common for greenfield developments built in the last several years. Unfortunately, as you have found, they are often operated in a way that does not capture their bandwidth potential. I suspect that in the case of Centurylink, they feel constrained by feeling like they can't sell 100 Mbps service to a FTTH customer for the same price as 10 Mbps service to xDSL customer.
So what I pay for 15/1 at $60 a month from TWC. Oh wait... I live in a third world internet country.
Meanwhile, Comcast is patting themselves on the back because they just upgraded me to 50MB! I feel like I'm being served $25 boxed wine by an idiot waiter while across the street a guy is getting a $16,000 Richebourg for the same price.
xDSL-prices are still quite high here, at least in Gèneve.
I'm not 100% sure if Swisscom has a monopoly as I have only lived here since January but here are Swisscom's price list for xDSL (rough calculation from CHF to EUR):
5/0,5 Mbit: 30 euro
10/1 Mbit: 40 euro
20/2 Mbit: 55 euro
For these connections you also have to pay for a fixed telephone line (hello Swisscom, this is the 21-century, not the 19:th!) which costs 20 euro per month.
(Source: http://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/internet/internet-at-h...)
Back in Finland I got a 50/10Mbit connection for 40 euros which included IPTV.
I'm not 100% sure if Swisscom has a monopoly as I have only lived here since January but here are Swisscom's price list for xDSL (rough calculation from CHF to EUR):
5/0,5 Mbit: 30 euro
10/1 Mbit: 40 euro
20/2 Mbit: 55 euro
For these connections you also have to pay for a fixed telephone line (hello Swisscom, this is the 21-century, not the 19:th!) which costs 20 euro per month.
(Source: http://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/internet/internet-at-h...)
Back in Finland I got a 50/10Mbit connection for 40 euros which included IPTV.
I'm paying 30€ for a 100M symmetrical VDSL in Oulu, Finland.
I'm actually getting 35Mbps in both directions, which is awesome.
I'm actually getting 35Mbps in both directions, which is awesome.
DSL is expensive everywhere in .ch , switch to cable if its available in your area:
http://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/internet/internet-at-h...
Not sure about Geneve, but in Vaud and Neuchatel it's available.
http://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/internet/internet-at-h...
Not sure about Geneve, but in Vaud and Neuchatel it's available.
It still seems to cost a lot, e.g. Vivo Casa package which has 8Mbit download speed is 74CHF, I have the same connection but with a VDSL-model.
The interesting part is that my connection really is 27Mbit so that the IPTV gets enough bandwith, then Swisscom adds this "artifical" speed reducer so that the Internet traffic only reaches a maximum of 8Mbit. :-(
Fiber in Zurich is a lot cheaper, eg. 20Mbit symmetric is about 25 euro with a small but very competent ISP
In Lithuanian FTTH 500 mbit connection is only 23 euro or $31
Fuck it I'm moving to Switzerland.
Honestly if I could find symmetrical adsl2 I'd be happy. Download speed is nice but I'm a gamer upstream is everything.
Honestly if I could find symmetrical adsl2 I'd be happy. Download speed is nice but I'm a gamer upstream is everything.
Games don't use much bandwidth, what you need is a low ping (you get in with ADSL by being near the central, and having your ISP set you a fastpath profile). Unless you need that bandwidth to stream what you're playing.
"symmetrical asymmetrical DSL" is an oxymoron, but where you get ADSL you can usually get SDSL/SHDSL. It's just going to be a lot more expansive :)
ADSL is pretty much a death technology, and the sooner we leave it behind the better. There is Annex M which could give a decent boost in upload (~3mbit) but it has seen a very low adoption rate.
"symmetrical asymmetrical DSL" is an oxymoron, but where you get ADSL you can usually get SDSL/SHDSL. It's just going to be a lot more expansive :)
ADSL is pretty much a death technology, and the sooner we leave it behind the better. There is Annex M which could give a decent boost in upload (~3mbit) but it has seen a very low adoption rate.
Move to Tokyo and get symmetrical FTTH for ~30USD/month.
Just move inside a rack. There's a lot of buzzing noise, but it's cold, dark, and there's good internet access.
Mind explaining how living inside a rack is comparable to living in Tokyo? My apartment in Bunkyo, Tokyo is as quite as the one in Zurich, Switzerland was. And if that's too noisy there's lovely neighbourhoods like Kichijoji that are even more quite. Where the "cold" and "dark" comes from I do not know, I'd recommend you visit here in summer and experience for yourself that it's anything but cold.
Upstream? As a gamer myself, I'd rather have low latency. Games don't need that much bandwidth anyway, downstream or upstream.
Maybe he likes to stream his gaming to twitch or something, I've heard that is a thing nowdays.
Move to Romania instead. Symetrical gigabit ftth for ~18$/month. I have had it for almost a year now.
I hope one of Tom Wheeler's minions prints out this thread for him on the dot matrix printer they use over at the FCC.
It's giving me an "UncompressableFileError at /"
[1] https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/ewz/de/index/telecom/ewz_zuerin...