[pikzen]

Romania (and if my memory serves me right, a lot of eastern european countries) have heavily invested into their internet infrastructure. Huge costs for their government, but it is paying off. As a result, almost the entire country has high speed links for dirt cheap.

It's somewhat similar throughout Europe too. Speeds may vary. Prices are relatively low. Paying 29€/month for whatever your line is able to supply is common in France. Regrettably, due to our choice of investing into copper lines heavily, our infrastructure is starting to get old. For example, I am getting 8Mbps/1Mbps and it's not likely to change soon.

[alexdumitru]

The government didn't get involved at all in the infrastructure here. There were thousands of small ISPs about 10-15 years ago that got bought by the two big ones. Then the two big ISPs switched everything to fiber and increased speeds while decreasing prices.

My ISP was so small that it required me to lay my own cables and get a router.