It's not. However, he's fairly entitled to have a beef with his government, that allowed such a deal to proceed knowing likely full well what the reality would be.

Which is exactly my beef.

Nobody here is demanding that any one company do anything. The thing is, we've electrified the country, we've run phone service to just about everybody. This is a solved problem. It's not like the internet was some super weird thing that's just impossible to do. You want the business in the lucrative areas, you gotta provide it in the not-so-lucrative areas. That's the trade we made with those other services, and that was the trade anybody in their right mind would have made with the internet.

Verizon's not to blame -- aside from just being weasels. There's no crime in that. (In my mind they could have made out better had they kept their eye on the public interest instead of quarterly reports, but that's neither here nor there. No crime in being short-sighted)

The problem here, as you point out, lies in the government officials. I swear after watching this go on year-after-year I find it extremely difficult to believe that anybody can be that inept. I strongly suspect payoff money somewhere, but I doubt anybody will ever prove anything.

The problem is that we never had a regulated internet monopoly.

The government made AT&T and Dominion Virgina Power run telephone and powerlines to everyone, but in exchange there was legally no competition.

Now the government wants competition, but that means there is nobody on the hook to subsidize this guys internet connection.

It is probably more efficient to just install LTE instead. Running fiber to every farm house is a waste of money.

Well, the trade we made, by and large, was allowing for monopolies, regulating them, and allowing for charges like a universal connection fee--in the case of phone service. Rural electrification in the US came through a fairly major federal program (during the Great Depression).

None of this would be impossible to do with broadband although there would certainly be side effects--almost certainly including increased costs to those who already have broadband. It's also the case that satellite is an alternative for many. I understand that it's not ideal but I know quite a few remote tech workers in rural areas who use it and don't have a particular problem with it.

Fair point.

I am not aware of the deal involving tobacco for technology. Sad that it appears to have not worked out. Perhaps this faith would have been better placed in setting up a line-of-sight or co-op system rather than in politicians.