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Why Is Connectivity So Cheap In Stockholm?
lpress writes "Symmetric, 100 Mbps service in Stockholm, costs $11/month. Conditions in every city are different, but part of the explanation for the low cost is that the city owns a municipal fiber network reaching every block. They lease network access to anyone who would like to offer service. The ISPs, including incumbent telephone and cable companies, compete on an equal footing."
My first thought was that because the city owns the entire network, much of the reason for the low cost is self-explanatory. But then I imagined if a similar arrangement were formed in the US, I would be extremely surprised if the same prices were attained. Local governments would likely see this as a source of income and either charge a similar rate to competitors, or possibly undercut their neighbors by a narrow margin in order to appear generous and possibly gain a few extra votes for the incumbents. Does anybody know more particulars of this arrangement and local laws in the area? Is the portion of the Stockholm government that runs this program have any sort of "no-profit" legislation?
Connectivity in Sweden is no cheap at all. You're asking two different things here. Most swedes have fast broadband on the cost of shared bandwidth. They order 100mbit and its usually 4-6MB/s. That being said, its probably a lot better than in USA etc. Premium, guaranteed bandwidth in sweden costs a lot more than for example in usa or france. Even if you order 100mbit you're still limited to like 200GB/month or similar. Go over that and you pay really a premium price for it.
Well, when the party that has ruled Sweden for most of the past century and still has the most voters is called the "social democrats" I think you can have a guess how "taboo" socialism is here. It is true we are a mixed economy however. The main difference to places like the US is that we don't pretend to be capitalist. We have a reasonably free market with necessary regulations that is complemented with a comprehensive welfare state. Oh, and over here "liberal" is something you accuse politicians of NOT being, as opposed to the surreal American situation where you're apparently pro freedom but anti liberty. Doublethink at its finest.