[sandstrom]

Without contesting the rest of your argument, I'd argue that these rates are not unreasonable or artificially low.

I pay $42 for 100 Mbit (symmetric, fiber), from a large Swedish ISP (without any government/taxpayer funding).

I think the issue in the US is that there is too much monopoly (and oligopoly), with ISPs lobbying [i.e. corruption] instead of competition.