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I don't buy that. One reason is that the article fails to account for the taxes that are put on phone bills that subsidize rural telecommunications. Another is

I don't buy that. One reason is that the article fails to account for the taxes that are put on phone bills that subsidize rural telecommunications. Another is that the regulations that force American telcos to support low-density projects have direct effects (someone subsidizes folks in Wyoming, and that invariably ends up being people living elsewhere) as well as indirect ones (regulating a business changes its culture for the worse. Risk takers get pushed out.)

dalke 15y ago
The Federal USF Surcharge is what, US$1 per residential line per month? That's the only nationwide subsidy program I know of. Even if it's more - $5/month? $20/month? - that's nowhere near enough to account for the disparity in network performance in the Northeast seaboard states compared to, say Sweden. I'm an American living in Sweden. I'm in a city and can get 200Mbit/s for US$80/month. Checking Comcast for Boston and I don't see any option above 105Mbit and that costs US$105/month. That's not a simple difference in subsidies. In any case, Sweden is not a densely packed country. It's about 54 people/sq. mile and the US is 83 people/sq. mile. Massachusetts is 830 people/sq. mile. Why doesn't Boston have better internet service than here? It can't be subsidies for universal access for a far-flung population since the surcharge isn't that high. It can't be population density since otherwise Boston or any other large US city would have better connectivity than here. The point of the survey is to analyze those reason, and you drew your conclusion after only reading a summary of it. The objections you raise come up every time there's a cross-national comparison of internet access. They are accounted for, and the US is still behind, and falling further behind.