Older article, but talks about how ISPs are making huge margins while actually reducing their capital investments:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
Two more recent articles looking at the margins ISPs make:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/...
http://gigaom.com/2011/05/12/n...
True revenue and profit reports aren't easy to get ahold of for the big ISPs. Yes, I'm sure the profits are higher in higher density areas. No, I never made any comparisons to prices paid in North America vs. Europe and Asia. The fact remains that the big ISPs took huge amounts of money SPECIFICALLY to provide broadband to rural areas. They can't then turn around and say they couldn't do it because the cost was prohibitive due to population density. They knew the populations when they took the money. You make a statement like the big providers are going bankrupt and tell me I have no idea what I'm talking about, without providing any sources?