>The issue is that offering halfway decent internet to people in rural areas would cost them lots of money Oddly enough, once competition appears, their inabil

>The issue is that offering halfway decent internet to people in rural areas would cost them lots of money Oddly enough, once competition appears, their inability to build out a half decent network disappears. >Time and time again, however, telecom has shown a willingness to compete on both price and service if a better municipal network pops up. Many cities with fiber networks are suddenly seeing massive investment from incumbent telecom providers—often, telecom will increase speeds and drop prices below cost. After Wilson, North Carolina built a fiber network, Time Warner Cable dropped rates within city limits and then, to subsidize the loss, it jacked up prices in neighboring communities, where it still had a monopoly. In Chattanooga, Comcast now offers 2 Gbps connections, which is faster internet than it offers anywhere else in the country. https://www.vice.com/en/article/ezpk77/chattanooga-gigabit-fiber-network https://www.vice.com/en/article/ezpk77/chattanooga-gigabit-f...