“I’m done playing the game. It's time for blunt, factual reality. No more promises not kept."

In Clark County, in central Wisconsin, economic development director Sheila Nyberg has proposed a partnership with an electric cooperative to get broadband to the entire county. Revenue from the system would be used to pay off a startup loan, similar to the way electricity was brought to the countryside nearly a century ago. Clark County is one of the least connected counties in the state, and it showed when schools closed for COVID-19 and students didn’t have home internet access. 

For more than a decade, Nyberg said, federal money has gone to large internet service providers that have done little to improve coverage in areas where it's needed the most. 

"I'm tired of pretending that the big dog is the best dog in the room," she said. Nyberg said some type of local control, such as an electric cooperative, would be a better alternative. “I’m done playing the game," she said. "It's time for blunt, factual reality. No more promises not kept."

https://www.jsonline.com/in-depth/news/2021/08/12/u-s-needs-future-proof-approach-getting-high-speed-internet-all-broadband-wisconsin/7298391002/

Nyberg's comment raises an excellent point. Despite incumbents claiming to have invested upwards of $80 billion annually to improve America's advanced telecommunications infrastructure supplemented by billions in government grants and subsidies, it's still not enough to bring fiber connections to most every American doorstep. As Nyberg states, it's time for a new paradigm of publicly and consumer cooperative owned infrastructure. Investor owned providers have clearly shown they are not up to the task.