Re: There is no reason we can't have
I think there are plenty of reasons. Historical limitations, no magic wand, and it's not because Ferrari exists that everyone has one.
Yes, it all boils down to money, namely who foots the bill.
No reason not to have 1Gbps ? How about changing all copper to fiber ? That's a heavy cost right there. Then there's changing all the switches everywhere with ones that can handle the new load. I think that won't be a small cost either - we're not talking about a new 4-port home box, we're talking about heavy-duty industrial switches. Not the same cost. The company that goes and pays for all that needs to pay for other things as well, and needs to be sure to recoup the costs as quick as possible or go down because of the strain. Municipalities aren't rushing to pay for it either, they have other problems to deal with.
Last, but far from least, if all the above was done, you only have a thousand-fold increase in the amount of traffic, not to mention everyone and his dog piling in for access rights. That's another pretty nightmare to manage effectively.
Gigabit Internet for consumers will happen - in its own sweet time.
As for the telecomms industry, their model was based on one copper line for analogue phone connections, which they implemented across the country. That was already a pretty impressive task, and they've been milking it for years. Then, all of a sudden came this Internet thing, requiring much higher quality connections, and throwing their entire backend into one godawful mess.
I have no intention of defending the telecomms industry with rabid support, but accusing them of having imposed artificial scarcity just for the fun of it seems a bit much. They have an entire network that was created to do one thing, and is now tasked with doing something entirely different. There will be adaptation problems, that is inevitable.
Now I do feel that they could adapt a bit quicker, no problem there. But asking them to change everything overnight is not realistic either.