Is there any research on the cost economics of a small-town ISP? I wonder if the ecosystem is conducive for a small-town ISP to come up and operate the last-mil

Is there any research on the cost economics of a small-town ISP? I wonder if the ecosystem is conducive for a small-town ISP to come up and operate the last-mile? Is there competitive pricing on the metro core and transit ISP bandwidths? Is there a settlement free peering exchange with major content providers? What are the long-term or minimum-commitment contracts one would have to sign-up to become a successful small-town ISP? How much capital is required? etc etc. I wonder why would they do these obviously bad pricing choices like charging for modem that's not even taken by the customer.