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Separating last mile ownership from ISPs was how it worked around the turn of the century with DSL in Seattle.

US West owned the lines to your home. Your DSL modem communicated with the DSLAM at a US West switching center, and US West relayed raw bits between you and your chosen ISP over something lower level than internet (ATM?).

US West essentially provided an unstructured dedicate virtual circuit bit stream between your DSL modem and your ISP, and your ISP provided internet on top of that.

Your ISP charged you for providing internet access, and US West charged you a fee for using their line.



What changed and did this work?

I had CenturyLink DSL in Seattle circa 2009. IIRC it worked fine and wasn't absurdly expensive.




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