That doesn't really pass the smell-test, especially not compared to other explanations like national differences in regulation and competition.
I live in SF - the densest US city on the west coast, and the densest US city after NYC. We have city-owned "dark fiber" run through (most?) every street. Any ISP can offer service by renting the connection to my house, as long as they service "the last hundred feet" from pole to door and the billing.
I have about half-dozen ISPs that will give me from 1G-5G of service, all under $100/mo - (a great price in America). I pay for redundant >1g fiber connections to my house for less than the price of my parent's 50 mbps bill.
The issue is capitalism. In much of the US, the ISPs have lobbied and enforced "monopolies" by exclusive fiat of the jurisdiction, in some shape or form. 16 US states have laws that prevent the local government from maintaining or providing internet infrastructure like fiber lines, requiring private companies to maintain it all. Any free-market enthusiast will readily tell you that competition brings prices down, but capitalism is crushing the free-market, reducing competition for the benefit of the wealthy.
And that’s without factoring in that fewer subscribers are going to sign up in rural destinations vs busy urban hubs.
This is why the UK had to make subsidies available for rural fibre.
AT&T, which already had cable here, ripped up the street a few months back and put in fiber. There are two other high speed providers as well.
Or you can just run new fiber in the pipes that contained copper wiring that has most likely already been swapped out for fiber in the 1990s. Or just add better line equipment and use those same fibers already there.
In my country, fiber is run to my apartment building and through the technical shafts. Very easy for the telco: to connect a unit, they only need to branch off from the technical shaft. I imagine the total cost to connect 200 apartment units is much lower than connecting 200 farms or 200 houses in the suburbs, even with the red tape.
On the other hand, rural areas require to digging a lot of kilometers of trenches just to connect a few houses. Much more expensive per home.
In many countries, the ducts belong to the operator, who is under no obligation to lease or share access with other operators.
It’s not perfect, as technicians from one provider tend to neglect customers of another, and it’s not uncommon to be disconnected by mistake. But it does mean there’s a wide range of options and genuine competition in the services and price. It’s not as if we’re left with ‘Verizon’s the only option here’.