I was just having a little chat about cable vs. dsl, and I learned some things I didn't know

In Belgium, there's a war going on between cable and dsl providers.
Right now, standard cable is approx. 4 Mbps down, and standard adsl is about the same. Both have capped upstreams (around 192kbps), and both go for around Euro 40 per month.

The cable down speed isn't capped, meaning that the maximum down speed you get, is determined by the pure maximum speed of the medium.

Now, both providers (Telenet for cable and Belgacom for dsl) have big plans, and that's where it gets interesting.

Before the end of 2005, every standard cable user in Belgium will have 81Mbps at his fingertips (30 Mbps up and 51 Mbps down). Belgacom (the dsl provider) on the other hand, is investing in vdsl, and will be able to offer 52Mbps by the end of 2005 (all over normal copper wires) to all of its users.
Keep in mind that cable users don't get lower speeds anymore when other people in the neighborhood are surfing.

The cable standard being used is DOCSIS 2.0, or EURODOCSIS 2.0 to be exact, a European variant of the DOCSIS standard (a standard developed by the ITU, a United Nations division).

Good to know that people in Belgium will be surfing at 50Mbps while American users still have to pay a lot more for far lesser speeds (we have Comcast cable here... 3Mbps for $49.95... not bad, but keep in mind that until three months ago it was only 1.5Mbps... dsl in the US seems to be pathetic with speeds under 1Mbps for the same price...).

Hope this sparks up some discussion, and somebody please answer this questions: why is it that in the land of technology and communication (the US, that is) people are being ripped off by internet service providers? Don't tell me that Comcast isn't technologically able to offer its users a far higher speed, or that dsl providers are only able to offer 768kbps...