Google has deemed Fiber a failed experiment. It's great for consumers that got it, but if not even a corporation with a giant war chest and the right kind of in

Google has deemed Fiber a failed experiment. It's great for consumers that got it, but if not even a corporation with a giant war chest and the right kind of incentives can make it happen on a scale that goes further than selected neighborhoods in a few cities, then it's clearly not suitable as a model for the rest of the country. Chattanooga is one of very few cities. Personally, I think it's a great model, because crucial infrastructure that needs to be shared among competitors is exactly the kind of investment that should be built and owned by taxpayers, i.e. governments or their arms-length subsidiaries. It's good for everyone except Comcast & Co. who want their overcharged rent extraction to continue forever, and call it a free market. Now imagine what kind of outrage it would be if people said, you know, let's make a one-time investment on a country-wide scale financed with some extra taxes so that we can get reasonable broadband prices for everyone for the indefinite future and invest in society instead of guaranteeing the profit margins of local monopolists. You're right in that the ISP monopolies are granted by governments - on the one hand, by having due process in place to make sure people and companies can't just dig up streets or add new cables whenever they just feel like it (which would be a mess, and America had it before, and it wasn't pretty), and on the other hand, by resigning to inaction to do the right thing, which is to provide important infrastructure without respect for currently rent-seeking incumbents who already made more than good on their original investments. People always complain about the former, when the sensible way to solve this issue is to de-stigmatize the latter.