"Rivernet charges $97.45 per month, with $37.50 going to Verizon, for a 1.5 megabyte-per-second line. Verizon will now charge $29.95 for the same line.

I heard that in Japan you can get a 100Mbits (http://www.odn.ne.jp/english/course/bflets/index. html )for only USD 15.50 a month, with the 3 months free of charges!"

I'm sorry, but America complaining that other people are getting better deals with broadband is like Northern Canadians complaining they don't get enough snow because Siberea gets more.
Here in New Zealand I'm paying the equivalent of US$50 for a massive 128bit connection, that isn't even considerd broadband! I'm afraid you won't find many bleeding hearts here, given that you're paying less than double for twelve times the connection speed.