I think this comes across as shocking to Americans but the thing is the rest of the world treats internet as a utility so most governments try to get cheap and fast internet for as large a portion of the population as possible. Where as US cities and towns are stuck under its isp corporate monopolies.
I live in a small, sleepy, insignificant town in the Netherlands. Usually in these kind of places, there's an attempt to arrive at a democratic decision regarding the installation of fibre to the home in a collective way.
This almost always fails. The people already have broadband by means of cable internet which is pretty fast over here. There isn't really any normie application that requires fibre, which leaves only one immediate benefit: competition. The cable internet providers are region locked and monopolistic. They'll even spam your mail box with propaganda suggesting you don't need fibre.
Anyway, our municipality took a rare stance: you may not think you need it, but we're going to do it anyway. But...what about that odd farmer living 1 mile from everybody else? Makes no economic sense? Yes, him too. Everyone. By principle.
But you'll need to open the streets? Yes, and we will. And here's the schedule by the day about which street opens when. The schedule was met. In the course of 2 months, an entire ring of small towns got fibre to the home. This includes opening up people's drive way and other custom arrangements.
So now in the middle of nowhere we have fibre, and we can pick from 3 providers on this single cable. A rare case of long term government smarts, and competent execution.
Then again, this example is far from universal.