Cory Doctorow1d ago

If you live in Switzerland you can get a 25Gbit fiber link to your home. That's 25Gbit *symmetrical* - upload *and* download. On a dedicated connection that's yours and yours alone. From multiple providers. It's the *ne plus ultra*, *magnifico*, *wunderschön*:

https://www.init7.net/de/internet/fiber7/

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/07/swisscom/#stacked

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Show threadSylocule1d ago
@pluralistic Spain have a similar system to Switzerland. Fibre to the house and you can use any provider. Most are around 1Gb symmetrical, but 10Gb is available from 1 company.
Show threadBad News Nobody1d ago
@Sylocule @pluralistic In Italy we cheaped out and got 1G/300M, and we are stuck with that for decades to come. In big cities there's 10G/2G, but otherwise there's only Temu fiber - and some poor souls are still on VDSL...
Show threadPaolo Redaelli1d ago
@dukeboitans my family still got 100M/30M and it satisfies our needs quite well @Sylocule @pluralistic
I just wonder what use can a "plain user" do of 25G fiber!
Show threadD21d ago

@paoloredaelli

Videoconferencing, whether tied to work or play.

Synchronization of large file systems.

Or, a notable moment when on a 300/30 cable connection 10y ago: Dad and mom working from home, on conference calls from time to time, when kids got a snow day and (I am not joking) they had homework on laptops, a TV playing an anime stream, a laptop looking up playthru/cheat videos, and two online games going. That, for reference, was 2 adults & 2 teenage children.

Someday, let’s talk of my epiphany a decade ago, when 4 souls in an SUV north of Gilroy CA had 4 phones, a laptop and two tablets working accommodations, college reviews, gps/mapping, and misc. “if you build it, they will come” applies to all modes of data capacity.

@dukeboitans @Sylocule @pluralistic

Show threadRealGene ☣️
@cascheranno @paoloredaelli @dukeboitans @Sylocule @pluralistic
It took ~15 hours to upload 100 GB of music to a cloud drive, on a 500/15 Mbps cable modem link (15 on a good day; depending on the weather, up is typically 8-12 Mbps).
Apr 7 at 2:24pmWeb
Show threadPaolo Redaelli11h ago
@RealGene I can't even figure how many thousands hours of music are needed to sum up to 100GB 😅 @cascheranno @dukeboitans @Sylocule @pluralistic