It's not though. Sure what you say may be correct in some amount but it has little to do with the comment you responded to and isn't much more than excuse for why ISPs take advantage of their (largely) monopoly powers in the residential internet space.
The reason you don't get a consistent speed and a guarantee as a residential ISP client isn't because of any of the reasons you mentioned. It's because ISPs can force you to pay for their service at whatever price they charge and no matter how bad it is.
The internet could be out for 8 hours a day, you could get sub-dialup speeds consistently, you simply can't connect to some services for some inexplicable reason, or your packet loss could be so bad that you get kicked from services and pages constantly. Guess what, you are still going to pay for it because what's the alternative? No internet at all or satellite internet that goes out whenever a cloud is in the sky and that alots you 1GB a month at 56kbps for 200USD/month.
No matter what a residential ISP does, they will still get their money and even if you service is complete trash you'll grin and bare it lest you end up without access at all. That's the reason we don't get consistent service with residential plans and it won't change until something happens to break us out of the monopolistic regulatory captured environment we are in.
Yes, the US residential market would definitely benefit from more competition.
The model we have here is to separate the infrastructure from the service such that infrastructure providers lay fibre to homes and businesses and then sell wholesale to ISPs who sell service over the common fibre to consumers. It’s definitely better than the US model as there is competition between ISPs and they therefore have reason to apply pressure to get problems fixed. Infrastructure upgrades are still painfully slow as there is little competitive reason to upgrade the fibre (or fibre / copper VDSL in many places) as all the ISPs have little choice but use the infra provider for a certain area.
Ideally you want more infra, but the cost of building out fibre networks is high, particularly if you’re only selling to 1-in-2 or 1-in-3 properties due to competition. That’s before you get to the politics and legals and lobbying you need to do to succeed in the US. I’m hopeful 5G will compete with broadband and give the providers the kick up the ass they need.
The reason you don't get a consistent speed and a guarantee as a residential ISP client isn't because of any of the reasons you mentioned. It's because ISPs can force you to pay for their service at whatever price they charge and no matter how bad it is.
The internet could be out for 8 hours a day, you could get sub-dialup speeds consistently, you simply can't connect to some services for some inexplicable reason, or your packet loss could be so bad that you get kicked from services and pages constantly. Guess what, you are still going to pay for it because what's the alternative? No internet at all or satellite internet that goes out whenever a cloud is in the sky and that alots you 1GB a month at 56kbps for 200USD/month.
No matter what a residential ISP does, they will still get their money and even if you service is complete trash you'll grin and bare it lest you end up without access at all. That's the reason we don't get consistent service with residential plans and it won't change until something happens to break us out of the monopolistic regulatory captured environment we are in.