What does one thing have to do with the other? Cities aren't in any way preventing improvements elsewhere.
Yes they are. No one has unlimited capital for investment, so infrastructure companies will invest where they get the maximum returns. If they're left to their own devices cities would get increasing fast internet, and everywhere else would be left stagnant. That drives more people to live in cities, which in turn makes rural economies fail. Then the people in cities start running out of food.
Slight reductio ad absurdum argument on my part there, but it's just to illustrate the point. For a country to operate having significantly worse infrastructure in one place damages the entire economy. Infrastructure investment has to be managed carefully.
This is where something like starlink et. competitors can provide a much better cost per outcome benefit. The challenge is how to bring the cost down for the benefit of rural areas on lower incomes. As it stands right now its pretty expensive for lower-mid income demographic to swallow price wise.
Opportunity cost. Why spend your installation technician's time in an unprofitable rural region when you can better-spend their time in a profitable city?
Put another way, how does banning improvements in New York suddenly make improvements in Montana more profitable?
If your argument were true this map would look much different: https://www.fcc.gov/health/maps
Local politicians all work just about the same way when it comes to approving an internet provider. Attracting them generally has to do with business incentives, which means if the State and/or Federal government do nothing then you'll get what you have today.
I can get 100 urban users up for 1/4 of the price to get 20 users in a rural sub-division. This isn't just capitalism, it's basic utilitarianism.
Why isn't High Speed Internet Access the same? Where High Speed Internet is defined as user able to purchase 1Gbps Internet should they choose to. They could get a 100Mbps if they want it cheaper, but 1Gbps must be an option. This ruled out any DSL tech and most old Cable DOCSIS standards.
And if Phone jack, Which I assume they are all RJ11 used around the world, why cant we do the same for SFP+?
Consider this map: https://www.fcc.gov/health/maps
You can mandate that the internet become a utility, much how water can be a private utility, and tell a company that for every segment they get in a popular area, where they'll make money, they must establish presence in an area where they'll lose money in the name of service. There's also price approval activity and probably some subsidizing that happens there. This certainly might work.
The other is for incentives to be drawn and invested in routinely that draw providers to less populated areas. These would have to be monetary, and you might be able to reason their subsidies look much like agricultural subsidies.
Another argument is wireline providers are just not sufficient for scale in the more rural areas. 5G won't work because coverage is abysmal. Starlink and other engineering solutions may be appropriate.
I don't really care how it's done, but being out here has made me realize exactly how awful this problem is.
The best I can get in San Francisco is 5Mbps symmetric. Would that be good enough for you? :)
One reason is because the only method of delivery that they have is point to point connections, which have a good amount of variability in them despite advancements. When I used to live out here I lived in a different area served by CenturyLink. These lines were incredibly old and in disrepair. So, speed isn't the only problem but slow and unstable is not okay in a day when most things require a consistent connection.
So, is it fast enough? I don't think so. I think a policy which stops upgrading cities until a baseline is met in the rest of the country is also appropriate.