Geographic monopolies. Most households have only one broadband provider they can choose, with satellite or DSL as the only other fallback
The benefit telcos provide Congress are in letting them target employment and benefits. There are few other industries where a Congressperson can reliably create X jobs and headline benefits for their district, specifically and tangibly. That, much more than campaign contributions, explains their clout.
(People tend to vastly over-estimate the value of campaign contributions. They're lifeblood to challengers. But for incumbents, they largely have value in not going to challengers than as a direct benefit.)
Building out new capacity as well as upgrading and maintaining existing capacity involves hiring and buying locally. By practical requirement. Often, too, by contractual obligation.
Look up your local telco monopoly and look at the number of field offices, warehouses, et cetera they have. It's substantial. That's because telecom is tough. It's also because it wins contracts.
Your assertion is false. https://www.vox.com/2018/12/12/18134899/internet-broafband-f... ("Finally some good news: The internet is getting faster, especially fixed broadband internet. Broadband download speeds in the U.S. rose 35.8 percent and upload speeds are up 22 percent from last year, according to internet speed-test company Ookla in its latest U.S. broadband report... As of October, the U.S. ranked seventh in the world in broadband.").
Where I live, you can get Comcast's "gigabit" service, which is over provisioned to 1.45 gbps (if you've got a cable modem with a 2.5 gbps port): https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast/comments/kx1t4o/gigabit_pla...
Look at these landing pages for supposed gigabit internet from coaxial internet providers:
https://www.xfinity.com/gig https://www.optimum.com/internet/fiber https://www.cox.com/residential/internet/gigabit.html
Not a single mention of upload bandwidth anywhere.
Now look at fiber providers:
https://www.centurylink.com/home/fiber/ https://www.verizon.com/home/fios-fastest-internet/ http://chattanoogagig.com
Baltimore, for example, tried to get Google Fiber several years ago, and actively solicited competitors to Comcast: https://www.wypr.org/post/why-comcast-one-and-only-cable-and...
> “We’ve, in fact, asked other cable operators if they’re interested in coming into the city and, so far, nobody else is,” says Minda Goldberg, a chief solicitor in the city’s Law Department.
> She was explaining things to Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke during a hearing on Sept. 22 on the renewal of Comcast’s 12-year-old franchise agreement. Clarke had asked if the agreement was an exclusive one with Comcast.
> Franchise agreements between a local government and cable operator are non-exclusive. That means anyone with the money can operate in Baltimore. And under federal regulations, the agreements apply only to cable television service.
The reason Comcast is a monopoly in Baltimore isn't "political donations." It's because the city insists that any competitor must build out to the whole city--which means running fiber to vast swaths of the city where people are too poor to pay what it would cost to recoup the investment. That, in turn, would force the company to recoup that investment from paying customers, which would drive up prices compared to the cable that's already in the ground.
Imagine the sad state of affairs if they didn't have government programs for these same problems with electricity and phone lines in the 30's through the 60's. Not just in relatively dense city areas, but even rural areas.
There were plenty of things wrong with Ma Bell, but having short-term profit rule all else is just one more systemic issue that keeps poor areas poor.
Sadly, I doubt this will ever get better; the system is too entrenched, and can protect it's interests better than any other human system in the past, making it nigh-impossible to topple.
People perceive it as a political problem, and in a sense it is, but they’re viewing it too narrowly. The US has enormous trouble building all sorts of infrastructure that other developed countries build relatively cheaply.
And even without corruption, in a fair world: you have to not damage property, have safe practices, and pay your workers well. While I'm in favor, doing any of that balloons costs.
The solution - to have an efficient, fair, non-corrupt system - is simply not possible today, and likely never will be. Unless you are already a monopoly that can do whatever you please and abuse whoever you want, building infrastructure will forever be very expensive.
Apparently, it did not stop states from granting monopolies:
https://ilsr.org/preemption-detente-municipal-broadband-netw...
Whoever wired the thing first gets most of the customers and can pay for the build out. If you overbuild a roughly equivalent network, you're unlikely to get a lot of customers and you're unlikely to be able to pay for your buildout.
It doesn't matter if you have an exclusive franchise agreement once your network is built; the business realities provide exclusivity.