Let's say it costs $1000 to bring fiber to each household in a given network build. The take up rate might be 35%. That is 35% of connected households become cu

Let's say it costs $1000 to bring fiber to each household in a given network build. The take up rate might be 35%. That is 35% of connected households become customers. Well that customer has to recoupe $3000 to pay for that build. Now imagine there are 2 last mile networks. The take up rate hasn't changed. If they cost the same then each customer has to recoup $6000. Network overbuilds make absolutely no sense. Government programs don't fail per se. They're designed to fail by underfunding them or adding layers of administration (eg state block grants to replace direct Federal funding) and then that failure is used to justify more cuts. It's called starving the beast [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast