In Germany, the government of Helmut Schmidt (social democrats) planned to implement an optical network to every house in west Germany in 1981. In 1982 Helmut Kohl became chancellor, cancelled the 30 year plan and what we got was coax lines for cable TV. Thanks a lot, just imagine where Germany could be today … to be fair, a significant part of households gets their internet connection over the cable tv networks, but still it was a dumb decision.

German article on the matter:

https://netzpolitik.org/2018/danke-helmut-kohl-kabelfernsehe...