Comment by oblio
1 day ago
> Europe had the opportunity to create a silicon valley 30 years ago.
I really like history but nothing like this come to mind, I'd be happy to read about it, what exactly did they do/not do?
1 day ago
> Europe had the opportunity to create a silicon valley 30 years ago.
I really like history but nothing like this come to mind, I'd be happy to read about it, what exactly did they do/not do?
Not exactly that, but one thing that comes to mind: Germany was about to switch the phone network to fiber with data service in the late 80s(!), but then Helmut Kohl (CDU chancellor) decided to build TV cable instead. He wanted to promote private TV stations because the public ones weren't conservative enough for him. Spoiler: Private TV stations ended up doing barely any political programming anyway.
Technical note: For some years, the few regions that got the OPAL optical network had the worst internet, but that problem would not have occurred with OPAL everywhere: Fiber can always be upgraded at the endpoints, the numbers were just too small to develop the technology.