Comment by crote

Rich countries suffer from a first-mover disadvantage: companies existed heavily in building internet infrastructure based on DSL and DOCSIS in the 2000s, so they are now trying to milk every cent of profit out of it while they can. Meanwhile in poor countries "the internet" was a 1Gbit LAN cable daisy-chained between houses, and the first large-scale commercial rollout is fiber - which is pretty much impossible to install these days at speeds below 1Gbps.

Going faster doesn't really cost that much extra. 10Gbps networking gear is 20(!) years old and considered obsolete by the rich countries, you can buy brand-new transceivers for literally $30. Go second-hand or Chinese and you can find them for $5. Basic 10G L3 switches? A bit over $10/port. Same with NICs. Heck, we're now at a point where homelabbers can get a 2x25G link between a pair of servers for less than $100!

It's 2026, and 1Gbps is obsolete. If faster gear is still expensive to you, it is only because you are getting ripped off by the western premium brands like Cisco.