My experience traveling around France this summer was quite eye-opening. At the first household I stayed at, they had no connectivity when I was there. Tech support put them on hold for half an hour, then said they'd send someone to fix it within two weeks.
Two weeks! Things happen on a different time-scale there. This wasn't rural France, it was in the University area of one of the major cities. The longest I've been without Internet in the U.S in the last 3 years with roadrunner is overnight, during a thunderstorm. And things always get fixed promptly.
That wasn't an isolated experience either. Many French cities, always the same story. Even when the connection did work, half the time it was so slow as to be unusable.
I'm totally with Arrington on the overall coverage of LeWeb. The amount of hanging out, drinking beer and chatting about politics that goes on is pretty absurd (not just in France, other European countries as well). That's actually great if you have a normal job, but definitely a problem if you're trying to do a startup. Europeans need to get real before they can catch up with Silicon Valley.
Two weeks! Things happen on a different time-scale there. This wasn't rural France, it was in the University area of one of the major cities. The longest I've been without Internet in the U.S in the last 3 years with roadrunner is overnight, during a thunderstorm. And things always get fixed promptly.
That wasn't an isolated experience either. Many French cities, always the same story. Even when the connection did work, half the time it was so slow as to be unusable.
I'm totally with Arrington on the overall coverage of LeWeb. The amount of hanging out, drinking beer and chatting about politics that goes on is pretty absurd (not just in France, other European countries as well). That's actually great if you have a normal job, but definitely a problem if you're trying to do a startup. Europeans need to get real before they can catch up with Silicon Valley.