I don't know about broadband, but as far as I can tell, you are absolutely getting screwed on mobile phone and internet rates. They're so much cheaper in much of Europe, and probably even more so in Asia. Competition is so fierce that calls here tend to be cheaper than the termination fees the network operators pay each other for routing the calls to one another. And they're still making massive profits.
I don't know why this is, by the way. A big problem is that the frequency bands are a finite resource which rarely makes it back onto the market once sold. The other issue is that a network with limited geographical coverage isn't as competitive; these two facts caused the "land grabs" when the GSM and 3G frequencies were being sold in various European countries. New players haven't joined the fray outside those periods; LTE doesn't seem to have introduced any new players, probably because the markets are now oversaturated and well served. The infrastructure investment would be immense. There are new resellers who rent access to the big networks, though.
Still, most countries seem to have 3-5 national operators, and competition among them is alive and well in many cases. No idea why it's stagnated in the US. You'd think one of the operators would slash prices to try and eat away market share from the others.
Density plays a big role in the cost of the last mile deployment. In urban Japan you can reach thousands of customers in a square mile as compared to a few hundred (or less) in typical suburban America.
Though that still doesn't account for places like New York costing just as much.
Without knowing the details, is it possible that internet in NYC cost as much as in the 'burbs because the ISP is a regulated utility? Are they allowed to charge different rates within a state?
I don't know why this is, by the way. A big problem is that the frequency bands are a finite resource which rarely makes it back onto the market once sold. The other issue is that a network with limited geographical coverage isn't as competitive; these two facts caused the "land grabs" when the GSM and 3G frequencies were being sold in various European countries. New players haven't joined the fray outside those periods; LTE doesn't seem to have introduced any new players, probably because the markets are now oversaturated and well served. The infrastructure investment would be immense. There are new resellers who rent access to the big networks, though.
Still, most countries seem to have 3-5 national operators, and competition among them is alive and well in many cases. No idea why it's stagnated in the US. You'd think one of the operators would slash prices to try and eat away market share from the others.