I don't follow -- which are the apples and oranges? Comparing wires and roads does seem like apples and oranges. You have to ask, why does TWC have a monopoly

I don't follow -- which are the apples and oranges? Comparing wires and roads does seem like apples and oranges. You have to ask, why does TWC have a monopoly in NYC? Did the market create it? Does the market protect it? Why do you think Google Fiber is skipping big markets like NYC in favor of KC, Austin (where I live) and Provo? I hear it said that it's too much work to lay infrastructure in Manhattan. Sure it's a lot of work, but as I watch them boring through the hard limestone up and down my street for the last 9 months -- it takes a whole day for a machine the size of truck to bore a hole from one house to the next -- to reach a maybe 1000 subscribers, I cannot imagine it's less work per subscriber here than a big dense city. No, they are avoiding the big markets because of webs of regulation and bureaucracy which protect incumbents like TWC.