Most of Europe has a culture of government-owned utilities and infrastructure, correct? Here in the US, that does exist but is less prevalent. Some government

Most of Europe has a culture of government-owned utilities and infrastructure, correct? Here in the US, that does exist but is less prevalent. Some government programs end up costing too much while delivering too little, these get a lot of media attention and become the focus of too much political debate, and now nobody trusts the government to get anything done. (Despite all the government programs that do get run well.) That said, I've long thought that the ideal arrangement for last-mile Internet should be that the local government (perhaps county) owns the fiber, contracts service and maintenance to a local company, and sells access to the fiber and customers to companies like AT&T and Comcast. Then companies can compete on service and price rather than which board members they can bribe. But that's quite a bit more work than just telling Comcast that they can have exclusive access to all of the homes and businesses in the township and charge whatever they like.