The US will eventually get to a standard of 1 Gbps (or more). It will continue to grow from major metro areas and eventually expand into rural areas. It's going to take a long time to replace our current infrastructure, and that's going to cost money. Money generated by the payments we make to our ISP's and complain about how expensive internet service is.
I agree with what you say.
But, there is no ambition for the current ISPs (cable providers) to offer faster speeds. Sure, they are (even in my area), but when those faster speeds come with caps, it does nothing for technology at large. Let me give an example of my cable bill:
Basic 25.50 (that's like 12 channels)
Expanded basic 34.50 (gives us 76 channels)
384KUp/6MEG down 39.99
FCC Fee 0.08
School tax 1.80
KY Excise & Reciepts Tax 3.24
Service Fee 5.00
Thats 110.11 a month.I have a 250GB cap. I get a "deal" on my internet because I have a bundle. Without the bundle my internet would be much more expensive. I am under the impression I already pay to much.
I would love to move over to some sort of streaming service, that however is not possible with the cap. There is no business service or otherwise that is offered without caps, I'm stuck over paying.
This means they (my local ISP) has no motivation to make things better. They can up the speed to the sky, with caps it does nothing but make me hit a wall faster. This represents the majority of the ISPs in this country. Yes, Google fiber is awesome... I will never see it.
Meanwhile we will remain stuck. This is the cable providers way to stay afloat in a digital age. Make people subscribe to these tired old services and they are guaranteed huge revenue.
This most assuredly sucks, but it is what happens when we drag old technology into a new technology world. And I don't believe the cable providers will close up shop and admit defeat, nope. Instead they will remain the gatekeepers and the gatekeepers can do anything they want, and they are, and we are paying.