The US has caught up and surpassed Europe. It is in fact questionable if the US was ever behind, it has had faster speeds than Germany, Italy, Russia, Poland, Spain and France for 20 years. Have you seen how slow average speeds are in countries like France and Italy? They're far behind.

The US average broadband speed is faster than all but five or six small European nations currently. US broadband distribution above 15mbps is also greater than all but a few small European nations.

You're also generalizing to about as great an extreme as you possibly can (Scandinavia is not all of Europe), given how far behind broadband speeds are in the majority of Europe compared to the US.

If the US approach failed so miserably, how come the vast majority of Europe is so slow? Once you get outside of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and Finland, speeds begin to collapse.

There are ~750 million people in the European Union, about ~710 million of those live in nations with slower average speeds and lower broadband distribution than the US.

If we're comparing something more like US states versus small European countries, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and Rhode Island have avg broadband speeds on par with the fastest small countries in Europe.

Countries the US beats on average speeds and 15mbps distribution: France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Britain, Ireland, Spain, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Greece, Romania, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania