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You're not familiar with the concept of easements, are you? Generally, the first meter or two of your property is designated as an easement, for the purposes of

You're not familiar with the concept of easements, are you? Generally, the first meter or two of your property is designated as an easement, for the purposes of running utility lines, telephone lines, and yes, cable lines. So yes, most people have given others the right to tear up their yard. It's just that the city then re-grants the rights to one or two utilities as opposed to having a genuinely competitive bidding process for the city's cable, telephone, or even electricity business.

superuser2 14y ago
>So yes, most people have given others the right to tear up their yard To one cable company, one electrical utility, one telephone company, and to the local government-run water and sewage monopolies. Not to fifty startups. A situation with a "genuinely competitive bid process" is a government-granted monopoly granted based on better criteria, and would certainly benefit consumers. It's still not a free market, which is my point: nobody actually wants a completely free market for last-mile utilities.