Currently paying $45/mo for "20Mbps/2Mbps" VDSL, $70/mo for "25Mbps/5Mbps" fixed wireless, and $110/mo for 100GB of 45Mbps/10Mbps LTE with $10/10GB overage, to barely stay online in semi-rural America, and I'm technically even in a greater metro area. The only way I can have a reliable video call is by using LTE data.
The fact that my household meets the current FCC definition of broadband, such that companies feel like they don't have to invest further because they've met their goal, would be laughable if it weren't so infuriating. I would be over the moon excited for 25Mbps reliable upload, and 100+Mbps download.
My local Bell is $65/mo for 1Gbit symmetrical.
> service was not nearly as good (1gb/50)
Units gore. From context you almost certainly mean Gb/s and Mb/s. mb and gb are weird units that although technically possible don't apply here. GB is possible in this context but probably not what you meant. From context this is mostly understandable, but it makes it harder to follow.
Edit: actually get those speeds both ways (~980/980)
I feel for my US counterparts.
You're comparing London to Middle of Nowhere USA. Gigabit symmetric for $80/month is available all over D.C. (More expensive than London, but incomes here are higher too.)
I live 20 miles from a fairly large city, there is a gigabit loop there...only high rises, average speeds in the city are 70bmps (which is why I feel lucky, I am right next to an exchange).
The fibre rollout was completely botched in the UK. BT (the former monopoly) was investing in TV and mobile, the govt has caught up with them now (and agreed to CPI+5% rate increases) but all through the 2010s, the only fibre investment was a startup that did a lot but was obviously limited by capital (CityFibre, just acquired by Goldman Sachs...so that should go well). The sector was also gunshy after the fallout from the late 90s: a big company invested heavily in fast internet and tried to overlay BT's network, it got taken to the woodshed.
The only place with consistently fast speeds over 100mbps is a small town/city on the East coast called Hull, due to a quirk of history they are the only place that is outside the BT monopoly (the monopoly there was run by KCom) so they got investment, and pretty much nowhere else did.
I am aware of the issues in the US but the UK is not a good example. As said above, telecoms policy through the whole of the 2010s was seriously mismanaged. We will catch up but we aren't a good example (most of the UK population is densely packed into England, which is the size of Alabama but with over 10x the population...even Scotland, which is roughly the size and population density of Alabama, has 75% of the population in 5% of the land...it shouldn't be hard).
We've just moved from 20/2 Talktalk to 200/20 with Virgin for the same price (£30/month). Pretty sure you can get Hyperoptic a couple of streets away, but openreach hasn't got to us yet (hence Virgin).
With all the home Zoom calls, TalkTalk was killing me. In 2021 it was frustratingly slow.