> - The United States is 85 times larger than Switzerland. The entire country of Switzerland is the size of a small US state. Covering the US with broadband is much harder than Switzerland.

I see this argument come up a lot with regards to all kinds of infrastructure, and the thing is it simply _isn't true_.

What matters is population density, GDP per capita, geography, and will. A countries size doesn't matter since twice the area will, all things being equal, also give you twice the workforce to make it happen. In fact the only change a larger area typically makes is better ability to make use of economies of scale, which makes things _easier_.

The only correlation between larger countries and trouble with infrastructure is that a large country is more likely to have large areas with nearly nobody in them, but these areas also typically account for a vanishingly small percentage of the population so they don't really count when people are talking about bad infrastructure.

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dlcarrier an hour ago | parent | next [-]

If the least populated 3% of Switzerland's geographic area didn't have internet access at all, no one would care because it's just a single frozen mountain.

If the least populated 3% of the USA's geographic area didn't have internet access at all, people would care because it's the entire state of Wyoming. Okay, most people wouldn't care, but some people in Wyoming would.

	▲	boxed an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That seems like another way to lie with silly stats though. If 3% of the least populated areas of all the subdivisions of the US the size of Switzerland were not connected, then that would indeed be just as irrelevant.

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AnthonyMouse an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Population density is the thing people are talking about when they say that. It's 6 times higher in Switzerland than in the US.

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mrheosuper an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> A countries size doesn't matter since twice the area will, all things being equal

It will never be both objectively and subjectively equal. Even the geographic is already difference, the weather, then there is people, wealth, etc.

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baybal2 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

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MemoryHoleHQ 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

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colechristensen 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Wrong, there are scaling problems. Have you ever worked at both a very large and very small company? Were things that were easy at small companies much harder at large ones?

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taveras 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's a false equivalence to compare working in a company to have the same scaling problems as implementing policies to set up broadband infrastructure.

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matt-p 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So why don't you have ISPs that focus on one state or one geographical area. We have that all over in Europe.

	▲	AnthonyMouse an hour ago \| parent [-]
		To some extent there are, but in many cases it's because the law prohibits that. It imposes build out requirements so that if you want to offer service in the higher density area you also have to provide service over a wide area that includes a bunch of farmland or similar. In theory this is supposed to be to make sure someone is serving rural areas but in practice it's because the incumbents don't want new challengers showing up to provide better service in the areas where it's profitable to build a competing network and so lobby the government to saddle them with a huge barrier to entry.

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dinga 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Indeed. But also some things that were harder at the small company were easier at the large one. You have processes in place, were things in the small company are all done ‘by hand’.

So I think it is hard to compare small and big. For one company things are easy that are hard for the other and vice-versa.

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Turskarama 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you imagine an infrastructure project in ANY country is managed like a project in a small company?

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ErroneousBosh an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> Were things that were easy at small companies much harder at large ones?

I don't know about anyone else, but I have *never* found this to be the case.

Dealing with a larger company you've got a far greater selection of people you can get to say "uh, yeah, I guess, why not? It's not really my department..." which you can take as a yes.

In a smaller company no matter what you're doing you've got to get it past Old Bob, who's been there since before most of the current management team were born and will argue over everything simply because he can.