It's not uncommon to have 100 mbps as "almost basic" Internet in Europe, at least in my parts of it... (Slovakia). 250 and 500 mbps is the "upper norm" and 1 gbit connections are now also available with many operators. 2015 is the year that most of them plan to upgrade plans and networks to offer 1 gbit. I had to laugh couple of weeks ago when I visited back home, I was reviewing some plans online, and 50/5 mbps was marked as "special discount plan for retirees and full-time students facing financial hardship". And yes, it was that cheap (like 6-7 euro per month or so, all taxes included).
The problem with the DR is the Duopoly Orange/Claro (Orange = Orange + Tricom), and the lack of / expensive upstream bandwidth to USA. It's still cheaper to lay huge optical networks under the ground (Europe, Continental USA) than to lay a submarine cable (Caribbean). On the other note, (the last mile) FTTH / GPON networks are much faster deployed in DR than in the USA or Europe, because there is no need to put the networks underground, Claro / Tricom just use power poles to throw their wires into the neighborhoods.
A friend owns a cable company in Santo Domingo, they are now moving to everything-GPON for new installations, because the one-fibre fiber cable used to connect outside outside "hub" to residences is 1/3 of price of the standard coaxial cable used to connect TAPs on the poles to residences
The problem, however, will still remain the uplink bandwidth ...