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In most places telephone deployment involved huge taxes and forced build-out into counties that would be unprofitable. Also, the telephone company paid non-discriminatory fees to the pole/conduit owner.

This was often paid for / subsidized by the Universal Service Fund, because telephone service was seen as something absolutely necessary for modern life. Back in 1934.

ISPs, unfortunately, are not able to be subsidized by the Universal Service Fund. AFAIK.

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Note that the Universal Service Fund is funded by a tax on telecommunications service. So a big company like Bell Atlantic (Verizon's predecessor) never received a net subsidy--the government just forced it to take money from some of its subscribers to offer below-cost service to other subscribers.

That said, the USF is a big step up from the "forced build-out" into unprofitable areas, which is what used to happen with telephone, and still happens with broadband. It highly distorts the market. E.g. if build-out requirements were imposed on Webpass, it'd basically ban their business model.

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