Why does Japan have gigabyte internet speed but the US and Canada does not?

It's an issue of economics. High population density makes running fiber to each house more cost effectinve, and allows higher speeds to everyone. In Japan, one high end network switch can service hundreds of people on one line down one road. In North America, that expensive switch may not have that many customers, due to less fiber, larger distances, etc., No point feeding gigabit into something that does not have enough customers that can actually use it. Other countries have 100mbps as well, and you will see that in most countries, speed is proportional to technology and population density (as well as wealth of the country for infrastructure)

"gigabyte" Actually it's Gigabit, gigabyte speed would be much faster. "The US and Canada have about 5 to 30 Mbps speed." My cable company offers 100Mbps connections (but it costs more). Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City MO will have gigabit internet connections soon. Thanks to Google. http://www.google.com/fiber/kansascity/faq.html "What is the hold up?" The real holdup: Google is able to deliver such fast connections because they are wiring the whole city with fiber optic cable. (Currently copper cable is what most people in america use.) Fiberoptic cable is likely already wired everywhere in Japan. Not too hard when you have a small island country and leaders that can easily force change. But in America we have waaaaay more land than they do, which means more fiberoptic cable is needed and since it's not required by the government, companies will only wire a city with fiberoptic cabling if they see a finanical benefit of some kind. With companies making money on the current way we connect to the internet and the goverment just arguing about everything instead of passing good infrastructure laws our internet speeds are going nowhere.

Look at the size of Japan, everything is close together. Look at the US and Canada, how spread out we are. How much more fiber optic cable would it take to connect everyone ?

"gigabyte" Actually it's Gigabit, gigabyte speed would be much faster. "The US and Canada have about 5 to 30 Mbps speed." My cable company offers 100Mbps connections (but it costs more). Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City MO will have gigabit internet connections soon. Thanks to Google. http://www.google.com/fiber/kansascity/faq.html "What is the hold up?" The real holdup: Google is able to deliver such fast connections because they are wiring the whole city with fiber optic cable. (Currently copper cable is what most people in america use.) Fiberoptic cable is likely already wired everywhere in Japan. Not too hard when you have a small island country and leaders that can easily force change. But in America we have waaaaay more land than they do, which means more fiberoptic cable is needed and since it's not required by the government, companies will only wire a city with fiberoptic cabling if they see a finanical benefit of some kind. With companies making money on the current way we connect to the internet and the goverment just arguing about everything instead of passing good infrastructure laws our internet speeds are going nowhere.

It's an issue of economics. High population density makes running fiber to each house more cost effectinve, and allows higher speeds to everyone. In Japan, one high end network switch can service hundreds of people on one line down one road. In North America, that expensive switch may not have that many customers, due to less fiber, larger distances, etc., No point feeding gigabit into something that does not have enough customers that can actually use it. Other countries have 100mbps as well, and you will see that in most countries, speed is proportional to technology and population density (as well as wealth of the country for infrastructure)

Look at the size of Japan, everything is close together. Look at the US and Canada, how spread out we are. How much more fiber optic cable would it take to connect everyone ?

I can't speak for Canada but it would appear that we're too busy sticking our nose in places it doesn't belong over seas for us to be concerned about our infrastructure here at home. We don't actually make anything anymore (besides lawyers and crappy cars) so it isn't really much of a surprise.