The Thai telcos are publicly traded also. I took a look at AIS (probably the biggest here) and despite much lower prices their books are in a much better shape.

The Thai telcos are publicly traded also. I took a look at AIS (probably the biggest here) and despite much lower prices their books are in a much better shape. Namely Profit Margin 15.81% and Operating Margin (ttm) 23.38%, they have proportionally less debt on their books and their business just looks a lot leaner and more efficient so despite charging ~1/10th what US ISPs do they have a better return on invested capital. So maybe US ISPs are just very poorly run businesses.