20 Years ago? It happened (by my count) at least twice after the Bell system breakup with Telephone companies accepting government money to bring the internet

20 Years ago? It happened (by my count) at least twice after the Bell system breakup with Telephone companies accepting government money to bring the internet to rural areas. After that, I think the broadband companies (many have since merged or otherwise changed) have done this at least twice. You can ignore any arguments by broadband providers or telco companies (or wireless companies) that they should be protected from competition and given money to build out rural broadband. They're more corrupt than almost any other US companies, and they've stolen billions of USD. The Internet (at least the backbone) needs to be a public utility, owned by everyone and neutral to everyone, period. Unfortunately this won't happen until the corruption in the US government is rooted out.