That said, I'd definitely be happy to 'cut the cable' with Google Fiber in Palo Alto. There's already a bunch of dark fiber spanning the city, Google Fiber is already active in adjacent Stanford property, the residents are (in general) willing to pay for quality service, and the city is not so large as to make the project untenable.
Of course, Palo Alto has a long history of community / municipal connectivity projects with mixed success, and a notoriously-fractious decision making process, so nobody here is holding their breath...
Edit: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPoint_Communications and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Communications
Well, it's not like they were trying to get rid of fiber. Verizon sold off all its wireline operations in rural and non-core areas. Fiber simply went along for the ride.
What Verizon was trying to get rid of was the copper. No company would be willing to buy the copper from Verizon and then compete against FiOS. Thus, the only way that Verizon could get any buyers was to bundle the copper together with the fiber.
This would make it more difficult for Verizon to attempt a market entry at a later date, as it would have to start from a position of no infrastructure.
I remember a Comcast exec a few years ago made the point that it was hard to do deals with Hollywood execs because the execs all lived in places in California that didn't have Comcast service, and couldn't really see the innovations Comcast was talking about.
As someone who lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, I'm not sure if Comcast has the stranglehold in our area that you think it does. I only know one person that has Comcast and the only reason that person has it is because they don't have access to Verizon FIOS.
FIOS is faster, more stable and generally cheaper than Comcast Internet. Comcast constantly advertises how their Xfinity is faster for wireless, but they're basing that on the fact that Verizon gives you an 802.11g router while Comcast gives you an 802.11n router.
With FIOS, I pay $74.99 per month for 75 Mbps downstream, 35 Mbps upstream Internet with their Prime TV package and unlimited landline phone (need for alarm system). It's rock- of-gibraltar stable, I consistently get the same exact speed on speed tests that is faster than what I pay for, and it's cheap as hell.
With Comcast, it was ridiculously expensive, the speed was hit or miss and I generally had to reset the router and/or cable modem about once every few days.
So it would be great to have Google Fiber as an option and I hope it happens in the Philly area but there are places that are hurting for good options far more than we are.
But my point wasn't that Philadelphia isn't a competitive market. My point was that, as a Comcast executive, seeing Google fiber trucks all over your neighborhood and coffee shops is a bit of psychological warfare so to speak. Furthermore, you know Comcast has all sorts deals in place that help them maintain their monopoly. Google would bump into each of those head-on and make hay out of it in the local press and online. At a time when Philly is trying to increase its image in the national tech scene, this would be a very interesting place to shine some light.
Also, Verizon just rolled out some FIoS infrastructure in south philly, maybe 2-3 months ago. It was really cool walking around and seeing unfinished junction boxes with these cables running into them with huge "FIBER OPTIC CABLES" orange warnings on them.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax%2C_North_Carolina
no, I'm not from Climax...but it's an awesome name for a...settlement?
Imagine the tagline: "Even Hell has fiber, why don't we?"