Hard to compete when local government is so corrupt they won't let you run physical cables to people's homes.

Not really. If you are in a democratic but corrupt country.

Make local people aware that you want to offer the service and this service can only be offered if the government lets you lay cable.

Start laying cable and offer your people service. Offer them a good deal and ask them to protect your cables in return. You'll be amazed how good communities are at protecting their assets, provided they realize the benefit of keeping it in shape.

Then bring those people in front of government to vouch for you.

Yeah, digging holes in roads without a permit. Not hard at all.

I assume in most places the cables are put on poles. Have you ever seen poles in some cities? It look like a 200 foot tall bird is using them to build a nest.

Genuine question: can you put fiber on poles ? Since it breaks so easily, I would assume it's buried only.

They routinely put fiber cables on high voltage lines, and apparently also on catenary masts along railway lines around here (germany).

Fibers are somewhat fragile, but not the complete cable. But the splicing necessary for local distribution will be hard to do on a mast top.

It hasn't worked out very well for France. They're nearly dead last when it comes to broadband in Europe.

They're 27 out of 31 in Europe as of a year ago, per Akamai's connectivity report. They rank below Russia and Poland, with a 10.8 Mbps average. The US was at 18.7 Mbps, with 48% above 15 Mbps. France only had 18% above that line.

Vietnam came in at 9.5 Mbps by comparison, and Malaysia was at 8.9 Mbps. France has nearly 20 times the GDP per capita of Vietnam.

> It hasn't worked out very well for France.

If you compare it to the situation before and after, it's a huge benefit.

> They're nearly dead last when it comes to broadband in Europe.

First, you assume there is no competition in other europeen countries. There is. Example in Poland: https://rentflatpoland.com/internet-provider-choose/

Then you need to adjust to the cost of life.

Free offers now 1Gb fiber for 30 euros a month. That's 2,5% of the minimum wage (1173 euros)

In Poland, the best I could find is 300Mbps for 60pln, which is 2.9% of the minimum wage (473,27 euros). So more expensive, for something 3 time slower.

And don't get me started on the modem. ISP in France provide crazy setup for you. Like the Free ISP gives you a box with an integrated NAS, a blueray player, a torrent downloader (that you can stream on your TV) and can be configured to use a VPN.

> They rank below Russia and Poland, with a 10.8 Mbps average

Most people in Russia or Vietnam don't have internet. So you are basically comparing a country like France, where even the small countryside towns broadband, with countries where in some remote town you still flaky basic utilities.

Russia seems modern, but it's so huge, covering everything is freaking hard.

Vietnam is very rural.

Poland is getting pretty modern now, but that's nowhere near french level if you get out far from the cities.

Also Vietnam internet is ludicrously good, it far outstrips anything America has to offer.

People bringing up Vietnam in a perjorative sense don’t understand how good Vietnam internet is.

Surely "average" is a poor statistic for nations with extremely rustic countrysides? It would vastly understate the real conditions in cities in those nations.

So is US.