What are the reasons behind?

What are sound economic reasons why US has fallen significantly behind other nations in broadband penetration?

• US is significantly behind Japan, South Korea and many European countires when it comes to broadband penetration and wireless advancement. What are some of the sound economic reasons for this to have happened despite the technology being pioneered in the US? (De)Regulation, competition or lack thereof, consumer behavior, other....Please give detailed insights and relevant arguments explaning the economic reasons for this lag.

• Answer:

  US has much more land. It is a lot easier to provide broadband to everybody in Manhattan than to everybody in Oklahoma state. And countries you mentioned all are like Manhattan. US was also a first-mover, and got locked into older technology (dial-up). Many people do not switch to broadband b/c dial-up is good enough for them. In other places phone lines are so bad that broadband is the only way to get reasonable internet speed. So they "leap-frogged" the US. Finally, places like Japan and Korea have government subsidizing the technologies that had proven successful in the US.