everything I've read about other countries(primarily the European Union) suggests that broadband there is mostly DSL, mostly too expensive, and not widely offered.

Really? Here (in Sweden) connections of 4 to 10 Mbps, symmetrical, aren't unusual in flats/apartments. That's generally a 10 or 100 Mbps Ethernet network in the building, connected to a fibre-optic area network, which is in turn connected to the vendor's national backbone... dunno if there's a TLA for that. I pay 225 SEK/month (about 20 USD) for 10 Mbps, flat-rate, which is a lot cheaper than a (pay-per-minute) modem connection for just about beyond a small volume of e-mail.