The UK regulator has mocked the US way of encouraging broadband development saying that rules are the only way to get it to work.

In a press release OFCOM said that the availability of super-fast broadband in the UK was now ahead of most large economies where deployments have been funded commercially. In the US, AT&T and Verizon have upgraded their networks to cover 17 percent and 12 percent of households, respectively, while cable company Comcast is approaching coverage of around 35 percent of US households with super-fast cable broadband.

In other words the main countries which are currently leading in the rollout and take-up of super-fast broadband are those which have had significant government intervention to support deployment, such as Japan and South Korea. Superfast broadband is considered by Ofcom as 24Mbps and it generally refers to DOCSIS 3.0 cable systems or fiber.

It said that government line-sharing rules forced BT to unbundle last-mile copper and make it available to other ISPs. The result has been solid competition in the UK and lower prices. Across the pond however the American regulators are too scared of stepping on the shoes of big telcos who accuse it of interfering with non-existent competition.