I notice that in the UK Bulldog Broadband offers 8Mb/s DSL for 20 pounds per month, for the life of your contract, and is starting to deploy 20Mb/s ADSL+2 service (no price quoted).
Here in the States, Verizon offers a max 3Mb/s service for $30 per month (after $20 per month for the first three months). And if you're lucky and you're in one of the areas where they're deploying FIOS, you can get 5Mb/s for $36 per month (which seems to be a drop from the $40/mo I remember seeing the last time I looked).
Could it be the competition created by the US government's rulings to give incumbent phone providers exclusive access to their networks?
For comparison purposes it's useful to note that while it's expensive for US dollars to buy UK products, the salaries and prices in UK currency for a UK citizen are roughly equivalent to US salaries and prices in US currency for US citizens.
John Meissen snipped-for-privacy@aracnet.com