[hakfoo]

What exactly made it possible to get copper wire into effectively every house in the country?

We didn't say "if a rich rural community wants telephones or electricity in the boonies..."

Maybe we need a new Ma Bell that's Uncle Fibre. Give them a very tightly bordered but lucrative monopoly in exchange for mandates to actually build and maintain the network. Perhaps some sort of scheme where consumers actually pay the regulator instead of the service provider, so they can hold payments hostage in the event expansion and QoS goals are not met, giving it real teeth.

It might end up being the same ~USD75-100 per month for 1Gb that many of us are paying for cable now, at least initially, but the cost would be funding making sure people in rural counties are getting modern infrastructure, and gradually ticking up speeds as more and more infra is paid down, rather than on yachts.

[JumpCrisscross]

> What exactly made it possible to get copper wire into effectively every house in the country?

Subsidies.

> making sure people in rural counties are getting modern infrastructure

Sure. This is inefficient when an alternative is more than sufficient.

Again, I live in a rich rural community. I have gigabit fiber to my home. I have neighbors ditching wired internet for Starlink because it’s cheaper and good enough and they can also put it on their truck when they travel.

My property value does well from the subsidy. But it’s inefficient.