[charwalker]

Fiber is identical as water pipes and railroads in that once it is laid down it is hugely expensive and unnecessary to run again. If it is then owned and controlled by a private entity then it will be exploited, expanded only for profit, and only maintained when totally broken. If it is owned, operated, and maintained by a municipal that has proper funding and governance it can work very well even if it is slower to deploy new technologies along the same lines as laying down new roads.

Separating anything that can operate like a monopoly is also the role of government, at least in terms of protecting markets and competition, and if the market then demonstrates it will opt for profit over availability then the service needs to be seize and operated or at least very highly regulated by the government just like water, power, and other utilities. There are many examples of this working when expansion or availability was not profitable and therefore not an option for a private company.

Basically, if it operates like a utility in requires high regulation to insure access and failing that requires government management and ownership to operate effectively. We tried giving billions to ISPs and it didn't go to expanding service. The market wants profit, not equal access.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywkn4b/study-throwing-tax...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-r...

https://www.broadbandtechreport.com/fiber/ftth/article/16446...

http://www.qlife.net/sites/default/files/imported/broadbandr...