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0 pointskalleboo12y ago0 comments

That sounds strange to me. I live in Sweden and went apartment-hunting last year. Not one of the apartments I looked at was without fiber (technically, ethernet in the apartments, fiber to the building). Including buildings that pre-date WW1. They all had pre-existing cable and DSL as well. If there's a will, there's a way. I guess in the US there just isn't much of a will yet.

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thedufer12y ago

Vacancies in NYC are incredibly low, so a landlord doesn't gain much by being able to advertise fiber internet. This, added to the expense of wiring the old buildings, means that its not a worthwhile investment.

tijs12y ago

In sweden this sort of thing is done by the city/state not 'the market' which makes for a different set of arguments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_count...

thedufer12y ago

What about the actual building wiring? It doesn't matter whether there's fiber to the building if cable has enough bandwidth to fill the copper between the cable box and the apartments.

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kallebooOP12y ago

> Vacancies in NYC are incredibly low

Same in Sweden. Often you need to be on a waiting list for 2+ years to get an rental contract in a large city in Sweden (longer in Stockholm[0]). The impatient among us flit around on 6-month second hand rentals. Or you buy an apartment with an untenable loan and hope the bubble keeps inflating...

[0]The wait is currently on average 7 years in Stockholm municipality. 15 years if you want a centrally-located apartment. http://www.svd.se/nyheter/stockholm/lagenheten-ar-din-om-att...

thedufer12y ago

Is there some sort of regulation going on there? In a normal market I would expect rent to rise until the wait time was down to something reasonable. You can always find an apartment within a week or so in NYC - its just going to be really expensive. COL here is about double the national average, largely driven by housing costs.

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ericd12y ago

Actually, I and many others I know would pay a significant rent premium for a building that had fiber access, so I think a case could be made for it financially.

lflux12y ago

Same for me. My apartment building in Stockholm is from 1943. It has copper for phone (DSL) and cable, plus fibre right into my hallway.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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thedufer12y ago

tijs12y ago

In sweden this sort of thing is done by the city/state not 'the market' which makes for a different set of arguments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_count...

thedufer12y ago

What about the actual building wiring? It doesn't matter whether there's fiber to the building if cable has enough bandwidth to fill the copper between the cable box and the apartments.

1 more reply

kallebooOP12y ago

> Vacancies in NYC are incredibly low

[0]The wait is currently on average 7 years in Stockholm municipality. 15 years if you want a centrally-located apartment. http://www.svd.se/nyheter/stockholm/lagenheten-ar-din-om-att...

thedufer12y ago

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ericd12y ago

Actually, I and many others I know would pay a significant rent premium for a building that had fiber access, so I think a case could be made for it financially.

lflux12y ago

Same for me. My apartment building in Stockholm is from 1943. It has copper for phone (DSL) and cable, plus fibre right into my hallway.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse