1) What's internet services like in the U.S. at large levels of granularity?
2) What's internet service like in the U.S. in specific cities?
Re: 1, I think the available data shows that, at a large granularity, we can say that, e.g. the average speeds in big European countries like the U.K. and Germany, factoring in their rural and urban areas together, are comparable to U.S. cities that have similar density, like New York or Connecticut. I think that shows that the overall structure of our telecom market is not inferior to that in the U.K. or Germany or France.
Re: 2, the question is why certain European cities have much faster internet than comparably dense U.S. cities. And I think the answer to that is the same as the answer to: why do certain European cities have much better public transit than comparably dense U.S. cities?
The status of Stockholm within the political structure of Sweden, or the status of Warsaw within the political structure of Poland is very different than the status of New York or Chicago within the political structure of the U.S. Large U.S. cities don't have the political pull to get national-level infrastructure investment.
I've never been to Sweden, but I'm familiar with Bangladesh, where Dhaka (10% of the national population), is the center of political life. I imagine Sweden similarly views the infrastructure of Stockholm as a point of national competitiveness. That's not at all true of American cities. The bulk of the polity of the U.S. views our large cities with skepticism and derision. Instead of viewing investment into urban infrastructure as a point of competitiveness, the heavily-suburban American polity views it as a boondoggle to get poor urban votes.