Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

> 1Gbps with unlimited data for $79 a month

Wow, sign me up. Comcast, which has a monopoly on my market, charges me a few bucks more per month, for 150mbps.

The costs for internet in the US still surprises me, how on earth can it be so expensive?! I understand some countries, but in the US, it seems high costs are because "because we can", not because it has to be like that.

In comparison, you get 1 Gbps symmetric fiber connection in most countries in Europe for under ~$30/month. In some, you even get it for under $10/month (like Romania, which has surprisingly awesome internet infrastructure).

Comcast has 189,000 employees who make US salaries. It costs a lot less to dig a trench in Romania than in Seattle.

You can look at the profit margins. 11.3% for Comcast as of June 2022. That tells me they aren't simply collecting the difference between US and Romanian internet prices in profit.

Of course, far be it from me to defend Comcast, but this is basically just the concept of purchasing power parity (PPP)

Costs of deployment and profit margins have nothing to do with it. The US public has subsidized the cost of broadband internet deployment since the very birth of the internet, and continues to do so like clockwork every few years. Private ISPs continue to caress the books to make it seem like they're barely operating at a profit and still need more, without ever having delivered on the last promise. Taxpayers have paid for fiber to every home a few times over at this point.

http://irregulators.org/bookofbrokenpromises/

The thing I can't really understand if this is the argument is where the money is actually going? With an on paper 11% profit margin it's certainly isn't shareholders, and even if the executives rake it would still be a blip in their total revenue.