Even governments, who get cheap access to capital, don't pay taxes, don't have to take profits, can't do gigabit in the USA for under 50 bucks. Upgrades cost money.
What we’re seeing however is companies who’d rather keep charging $50 and offer zero upgrades because there’s zero incentive to.
In Italy we went from an average of 2GB of mobile data to 50GB because a new player entered the market and existing companies had to adapt because they were obviously bleeding customers. I’m sure it cost them money, but it happened, and now people can use more internet for less money.
Now you can argue that my mom doesn’t use more than 2GB/month, but now she can, and so can I, without having to pay $100/month like you do in the US — I pay €8 for 50GB
They may have more dense populations but it does seem the US often gets left behind on these metrics, and usually some or other de-facto monopoly is behind the scenes being obstructive.