In 1934, the Communications Act passed.
This bill mandated that every home, office, school, and library was entitled to phone service, and this would be done by copper wire. These copper wires would be a state utility, making sure rural, urban and suburban locations would be served at ‘fair and just’ rates.
By the 1960’s, America developed one of the best communications networks in the world. The vast majority of Americans could easily sign up for phone service.
This was done by a monopoly , Ma Bell (AT&T) and broken up in 1982 to become AT&T, Verizon and Centurylink.
Since then, Americans would pay over and over and over for upgrades of these state utilities, even though most of the money was diverted to help build out the companies’ other lines of business. Since then, the modern telecom utility business model formed: charge more for less, and get away with whatever you can.