In the U.S., waiting for high-speed fiber internet to come to your neighborhood is a bit like waiting for a file to download over dial-up. It's gonna take a while.

But in China, the government will soon require all new homes constructed where public fiber-optic telecom networks are available to be equipped for access to those networks, according to China Daily.

Residents will be required to have equal access to services from available telecom companies. The new policy from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will go into effect April 1, 2013.

The Chinese government wants to connect 40 million families to fiber networks by 2015 – according to the Economic Information Daily Journal, as cited by China Daily – and fiber connections grew by 10 million families in 2012.

The cost of deploying fiber networks is driven in large part by the "last mile" phase – the process of actually connecting homes and businesses to the fiber network. China's policy puts the onus on builders to deal with the last mile.

The project drives home the point made previously by Mark Ansboury, founder and president upstart U.S. broadband provider Gigabit Squared: In other countries, broadband is driven by government investment and regulation, while in the U.S. it's driven by the needs of investors at entrenched companies. Such a heavy-handed policy is unlikely to fly in the U.S., and many builders would likely want to provide fiber connections as a selling point. But the contrast between the two countries is telling.