> I think it has more to do with competition than anything else. When I lived
> in the US (until 1995) telecoms there was cheaper than in any European
> country. Today it is the other way round. Most European markets are far more
> competitive than the US market.
Yes and no. The regulatory environment is entirely different in
various countries, with substantial differences in the laws that
govern telecommunications.
Without getting into a lot of depth, I'll just summarize it this way:
In Europe, there are shared network resources and all the various
competitors are more a function of marketing/support/product than
network. It doesn't matter who you write your monthly payment to, as
the access network is usually the same. In the US, most competition
requires a separate network access owned and operated by that company.
While there is a lot of nuance and variability in this, the primary
difference between the US and Europe for wired-access is such.
Another major difference in costs and capabilities has to do with
government funding. Cost to deliver telecom services varies so much
based on where you live. For example, do you have any idea how much it
costs to provide services to a customer in Nome, Alaska compared to
downtown Denver? When everybody lives in high-rise apartment blocks,
providing high-speed and high-quality service is easy. Little Diomede
Island? Not so much. What the government does (almost all countries do
this around the world) is help defray the true cost of service to
those who live in remote locations. I literally have faster internet
speeds at my house in Alaska than most people do in Alexandria,
Virginia. Government subsidies for providing service to some areas can
be as high a $10k per household (or more).
AK (living life 2gigabits at a time) Schnozz
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