Except I'm relatively certain that like most states once you're outside one of the major cities the options and quality of broadband access drops significantly.

Except I'm relatively certain that like most states once you're outside one of the major cities the options and quality of broadband access drops significantly. In many non-US countries this is not the case. Likewise the level you're able to get isn't even equally available in main cities across the U.S. My hometown of Milwaukee WI for example has very poor options for s moderately large city. Compare this to a relatively small city like Pereslavl in Russia where I lived for a summer. It's about 120some km north of Moscow but the base options for most of the ISPs was 50/50; note the plural on ISPs. We had more choices and better service in a small Russian city than most states have across their major cities. And my girlfriend (Russian native) was annoyed that we had to pay an "outrageous 450 ruble" for the access. It's not just a matter of size with the U.S., the planning in general is very poor and not built out compared to many countries. The priority on the last mile networks just seems to be lower or more poorly managed.