On Tue, 29 May 2001, Sean M. Doran wrote:

The correct way of solving this was demonstrated in Stockholm and duplicated in a handful of Canadian cities. In the first case, the City of Stockholm "nationalized" the laying down of dark fibre in the city, and formed an agency (http://www.stokab.se/english/) which provides unlit/unrepeated/unamplified dark fibre between any pair of addresses in Stockholm at cost as a public utility.

On the other hand, Palo Alto California demonstrates the folly of relying on government to lay fiber optic pipes.