All of the explanations are easy: It costs a lot of money to build a physical last-mile network that serves a large number of subscribers. Municipal broadband

All of the explanations are easy: It costs a lot of money to build a physical last-mile network that serves a large number of subscribers. Municipal broadband projects would, rightly (in my opinion), be expected to serve the entire city that's funding such a project but that build out would be expensive. Cities with city-owned electrical systems, like Seattle, can mitigate some of the costs by having their power operator run the physical wires through city-owned conduit. But, let's take Seattle as an example, not every part of the city has city-owned conduit and several discrete parts of the city have buried utilities that aren't even in conduit. All of that work has to be paid for and most large cities have other pressing budget needs. There's a movement in Seattle to get municipal broadband done in Seattle but it is slow-moving because, again, money. (Nothing in Washington State law prohibits a city from running its own Internet/cable/phone system. The RCW that a lot of people, falsely, quote as banning muni broadband in WA only applies to public utility districts. Tacoma has its own municipal system, called Click!, that seems to be well-received.)