[georgemcbay]

While this is true, it doesn't really explain the situation in the US, IMO, since the very populous urban centers here suffer as badly, if not more so, than the more rural areas.

If you live in a sparsely populated area the excuse is "well, it is expensive to wire you up because of distances". If you live in a densely populated area the excuse is "well, it costs a lot of money to put new infrastructure into a densely populated area".

In both cases, lots of other countries are managing to do both of those at far lower cost to the consumer than occurs here in the US. Ultimately the ISPs here in the US are just greedy, duopolistic fucks.