https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556

Second, Europe has telecom monopolies and the US doesn't. What Europe does is force the monopoly to sell service to ISPs. But only one company owns the copper/fiber. There is one company in charge of building a fiber network and everybody has to use it. The ISP competition makes sure nobody is ripping you off, but it doesn't ensure network quality at all. Since there is one physical connection to your house. They have no incentive to keep their costs down. They have no incentive to build faster networks. And there is nothing the ISP can do.

So what they do is regulate the telecom. Make them do it.

In the USA, most areas have two competing telecom-ish companies. The telephone company (AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Frontier, but never more than one of the above) and a cable company. In populated areas, both of these provided high(ish) speed internet. In some areas only one does, and in some areas none do. But these companies actually own their networks. But they don't have to resell their service like Europe enforces.

But that increased competition on the network to your house doesn't work very well. If Verizon makes a huge upgrade, there is no insurance that people will pay more for it. Which is exactly what happened. Verizon spent a ton of money on a nice fiber optic network and people mostly stuck with their old cable service. So in America you have two networks, with overlapping coverage, each delivering to roughly half the market. Competition actually causes less efficiency.

But in the end Europe and Americas ISPs aren't really that different. America has better ISPs than the France, Italy, Spain, etc. But countries who can more effectively regulate, have better outcomes.

I wish America regulated it better, but it's not corruption. Just a bad policy choice made in 1996.