[pkandathil]

Couple of reasons why it's more expensive here: 1) Area and population density: Countries like Japan have a small area with a very high population density. This drives, infrastructure costs down and the return on it high because you have a lot of users.

2) Minimum wage in the US: The cost of labor in the US is quite high hence it costs more to build out infrastructure than it does in other countries.

[gergles]

People continually try to use density as some sort of an excuse for the ludicrously under-spec broadband deployments in the US.

Why do NYC, SF, Boston, Chicago, and LA all still have the same shitty service as the rest of the country? SF is far more dense than the totality of any European country and only has the same monopolistic, overpriced, underperforming, punitively-capped service as the rest of the US (except for the lucky people who live in the 20 webpass buildings.)

[mratzloff]

Japan, France, Australia, and Britain (a sampling of countries being discussed) all have minimum wages that are comparable to or in excess of the United States.