Japan Is The Only Country Future-Ready for Broadband > Japan is small, that's why.....

reply to en102

Re: Japan is small, that's why.....

Very true, however, being that NYC is a city that is a mere blip in the physical size of the country, and there are typical laws (country, state, county, city) in which companies typically operate, having a company and competition that is in an area as small as the state of Calfornia with a population of half of the U.S., population density of the country itself is quite high, and easier to promote this kind of business. Japan has many high tech innovations because of its population density (high speed trains, 3G/4G wireless).
Government regulation typically helps promote this kind of infrastructure investment as well.
Many countries that have regulated infrastructure typically aid on buildout, sometimes at higher prices. The U.S. industry typically holds out for corporate welfare (aka USF)
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Canada = Hollywood North

By that logic, France wouldn't have the level of Fiber/ADSL2+ penetration it has as of now. While many southeast Asian countries benefit from gov't-subsidization, French ISP's don't. Nevertheless, companies like Free.fr and Orange have engineered advanced backbones and FTTH networks, years before our own 'big cities' in the states began to even expect fiber. Per se, it took till 2008 for NYC to even secure a damn franchise, while urban centers in France had been enjoying either FTTn or FTTH for years. Even then, many parts of NYC will likely not see a trace of fiber in the next decade or so, given Verizon's track record of broken promises.

France is still a relatively physically small country with decently high population density (overall 114/km2)and is physically smaller than Texas, with more than 4x the density.

Verizon and NYC want to cut deals.

You'd have to compare with Canada or Russia for population density... but then again, Canada gets subsidies in the boonies.
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Canada = Hollywood North

Nevertheless, it doesn't explain why pretty much no major U.S. city has widespread FTTH or even comparable FTTn yet. Fact of the matter is, our national broadband regulation/plan (if any) is a bungled mess written by the telco's and cable MSO's a decade ago. Now, that doesn't mean gov't needs to directly setup a welfare state. What we need is clear policy that actually creates real competition and brings change(tm) to the market. What we currently have isn't a competition. Thanks in part to our dear leaders' blind eye, telco's have successfully screwed CLEC's, with the lube handed to them by the FCC. The only remaining competitor is cable, whose prices and (often) draconian policies make them sometimes a rather unfavorable choice. What remains? Satellite is out of question, and ALL 3G providers have a 5 GB cap, except Millenicom. Even if you get Millenicom, the speeds/latency leave a lot to be desired.
We had our chance with the Telecom Act of 1996, with CLEC's, and we killed it, paying $40 Billion in the process. France, on the other hand, saw their chance and seized it, creating a competitive environment to the point where CLEC's were powerful enough to actually take on their own FTTH roll-outs, effectively forcing the ILEC to do so as well. We, even the people in major cities, are stuck with our amazing 100-year old copper-based network. Yay... gotta love competition...

Basically - it means that there's no demand for it and no regulation to push for it.
US will have lawyers all over regulatory issues, and corporations do not want to deploy w/o having huge profits unless regulations (corporate welfare system) is there to pay for it.
Unless someone has a large profit margin available, and guaranteed, they're not sticking their necks out.
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Canada = Hollywood North

FiOS isn't available nationwide

/lives in the 2nd largest city with pewVerse and TWC
//they don't compete here (no VoIP even on Uverse)
///got the $89/month VoIP/HSI/Digital tv for a year on TWC
////UVerse offering +$200 rebates (have to... no VoIP makes Uverse REALLY expensive for triple play)

Many of these physically smaller countries have a certain amount of regulation on the infrastructure that doesn't exist here. Corporations will build where they can either maximize profit or have an interest (i.e. business case, political influence).

Eg. AT&T deploys VoIP at $40/month, except Detroit is $20/month
Los Angeles area has had Uverse for +1 year, yet will not have VoIP because AT&T can make more off of POTS $40=~$53/month after taxes.
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Canada = Hollywood North