Why would the US government be doing this? Surely local government is better suited to these decisions?
> I try to be an optimistic person, but years and decades of gridlock and getting nothing done in the US is definitely wearing on me.
That's just like, your opinion.
We do a lot of things well in this country, you just have to be willing to look. Public infrastructure like roads and power seem like they have plenty of examples of what works to get this built out.
I don't see why any other utility model needs to change significantly for last mile.
Some states have regulated so municipal ISPs can't start up or have no control. I haven't read an article saying Municipal ISPs are any worse than commercial and often cheaper and less hostile too. Funny how that happens when the profit motivator is taken away.
I'd argue that ISPs end up using infrastructure that is common (think tragedy of the commons) like a water pipe or power line and should be open or publicly owned/maintained. By exploiting exclusive ownership of a common resource, ISPs become rent seeking and suck cash from both customers and taxpayers. As long as they hold ownership of the lines, they can charge what they want or you have to pay a huge cost for a new fiber line or have no access.
So seize the lines, just like water and power, and allow well regulated companies to facilitate the utility like many states do for power. Allow cities to push for municipal control and management (ex taking over line maintenance in exchange for providing services. Force it into a system where it pays for its own upgrades vs millions to execs and share holders, just like health insurance in many countries.
Power is a nightmare! We just precariously string up more high voltage lines on poles because we can't figure out how to do street construction at a reasonable cost or on budget. These now cause massive wildfires every summer, as well as frequent outages from random things like balloons hitting the lines.
San Francisco had a plan and still has a tax in place to bury power lines, but they pre-spent all the money in 2007, made much less progress than expected, and haven't made any additional progress on it since.
More generally, infrastructure like trains and bridges are incredibly difficult, unpredictable, and expensive to build now. The California high-speed rail and Caltrain extension are effectively indefinitely postponed at this point. It's a perfect example of exactly what I was saying - it's a problem that has been solvable in the past, there are examples of other countries doing a much better job of it, but the US is completely unable to do it.
Where exactly do you look at infrastructure projects in the US in the past 2 or 3 decades and see this success story you're talking about?
> I try to be an optimistic person, but years and decades of gridlock and getting nothing done in the US is definitely wearing on me.
That's just like, your opinion.
We do a lot of things well in this country, you just have to be willing to look. Public infrastructure like roads and power seem like they have plenty of examples of what works to get this built out.
I don't see why any other utility model needs to change significantly for last mile.