Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

Good. Municipal broadband is only a thing because Comcast services are terribly below par

I've never understood this. If you have a real or de-facto monopoly, why would you jeopardize it by providing poor service/overpricing your product? That just draws attention to the situation. Keep things reasonable and it's a lot harder for people to make noise because the majority will be fine with the way things are.

Just about every internet provider has shitty service. Time Warner Cable - the only option in many parts of New York City - is the bane of our existence.

Literally, literally every time we move, we've tried to cancel the internet at our old apartment and set it up at our new apartment - and had them end up canceling the internet at the new place. (What happens with the old internet is different every time; either it gets cancelled as well, or it remains an active account that we get billed for, or some other egregious customer service failure.)

I dislike Comcast as much as the next guy, but are we really betting on a government project to stay within budget as well as provide a high quality of service? Just digging a tunnel in Seattle took us $2 billion dollars! Instead of setting this up as the "government internet" - which is going to make it super political, why not just have the public own the 'last mile', and then let private companies plug into the grid?

Some communities aren't profitable to serve with broadband. The first municipal broadband efforts I was aware of were created because no commercial ISPs wanted to compete in an area.

Broadband, like water and electricity, is a natural monopoly - there's only so much room on the poles, and there's significant economies of scale by having everyone in a neighborhood connected to the same infrastructure.

I hope that Municipal broadband becomes more available and more common. On average, the service provided by the municipalities is much better, and much cheaper than the commercial alternatives.