[Xayd]

Because the providers of raw bandwidth in the US (in the form of ~20 backbone link providers) are the only people who make money in the internet service industry.

This situation is no different than the situation 20 or so years ago with AT&T fixing the price of long distance, the only difference now being that all of these companies fix high prices as a group rather than one company controlling it all.

European countries in which the government doesn't answer to campaign contributions don't have this problem, which is why you can get a 10mbps sync connection in Sweden for around the equivalent of 40 US dollars a month.

There's nothing free about the free market in this business. It's cheaper for the lot of them to sell a little bandwidth to you for a lot of money than to sell you a usable amount of bandwidth for a fair price.

And no one can make me believe that providing bandwidth is so expensive as to justify these prices, when Europe has outpaced us in this market on a measure of what the consumer gets for his money, with the exception of the UK (because they like the US must preserve their price gouging telecom monopoly(s) in the form of British Telecom).

As a reference, you pay 40 a month for 1.5mbps DSL? Well, that much bandwidth to an ISP costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 to 200 dollars a month, depending on how much they pay for on a monthly basis. Look at the numbers, that's is why there are no more local ISPs, and internet service in the US is shotty at best. No one cares what you get or how much you pay for it, the only thing that matters is the collective bottom line profits and lack of any competition for AT&T/Sprint/C&W/etc. and the regional Bells.