PBS has a new 13 minute video called High Fiber that looks at broadband in the Netherlands and Britain, and compares it to the US. The differences are striking.
In Canada, we have controversies over usage based billing, and the costs of both basic internet services and fees for going over the monthly limit. And various surveys put us on a downward path in international rankings for various broadband metrics. This recent OECD survey, for example.
The video shows that in the Netherlands and Britain more fiber is being installed (including to the home), competition is increasing, speeds are increasing, and costs are decreasing.
Affordable high speed internet access is crucial to our future economy. We somehow need to reverse the downward trend.
I don't disagree with David's conclusions, but it is a LOT easier to wire a small densely populated country like The Netherlands or even Britain, small compared to Canada with a considerably greater population, than it is to deal with our wide-open spaces – even our wide-open suburbs, compared to the UK, for example.