Bloating

being propped up includes excessive copyright protections

At one time, Walmart and Microsoft were considered by some to be "natural monopolies".

Everything these companies do is about pulling the wool over the ratepayers eyes, so the masses don't complain to the politicians. Did you see the latest ad about how they're working hard to deliver service, and the article about the latest donation they made to some non-profit. The media tells my its all good, so it must be

  The lawyers for the various environmental groups, otherwise highly supportive of offshore wind, have read all those secret documents. Having read them, they endorsed a significant performance standard with financial penalties

It blows my mind how many aggressives and their useful idiots talk crap about greedy corporations, but will defend this textbook case of cronyism... an $8 billion boondoggle with a rate-of-return guaranteed to protect this privileged company's stock price and increase executive salaries.

Dominion lobbied hard to get the regulatory framework they now cite as being violated. Its classic wolf guarding the hen house.

from the above article:

  The SCC judges and their staffs have read all those secret documents. Attorney General Jason Miyares’ team in the Office of Consumer Counsel have read all those secret documents. The lawyers for the various environmental groups, otherwise highly supportive of offshore wind, have read all those secret documents. Having read them, they endorsed a significant performance standard with financial penalties

Sounds like a great idea! When can we get started?

Cool, whats your prognoses for effectiveness of the Reduce Inflation Act

You still had to build-out the last mile though, and thats what will get you. You either need private easements, or be a registered telecom utility to use public utility easements. That last mile is $20k +/-, depending on your circumstances. If your semi-rural or less, there's ROI sucks. Hence, many smaller ISPs are wireless.

At least in area, there are already a number of wISPs, 5G is rolling out, Starlink eventually. and lots of gov't funding going to the big players to expand their networks (and drive the start-ups out of business.)

There some other business models out there too that look interesting. Underline in Co Springs, for example. They provide a basic tier of service, in order to qualify as a telecom, install the fiber and then allow multiple competing ISPs to use their network.

IMHO, any utility that has the benefit of government privilege should be required to allow competors to use the infrastructure that the taxpayers funded.

I'm waiting on one of you brilliant folks to defy the laws of physics to create a decentralized, wireless mesh internet.