One of the Broadband Stimulus grants (at $33M) went to North Georgia Network Cooperative. ComputerWorld is all atwitter because this grant means that NGNC will compete with Windstream, which already offers 10Mb to 100MB Internet Access in that region. And "Windstream covers about 70 percent of the area that North Georgia Network Cooperative proposes to cover using government money".

The irony is that pundits are criticizing the FCC's new National Broadband Policy precisely because it does NOT include any measures to increase competition for broadband. Now one of the few grants approved actually will increase broadband competition in Dawsonville and the surrounding area and one media outlet is upset. (More likely Windstream is peeved).

This is the foundation of the fight with Greenlight in Wilson, NC (and with LUS in Lafayette, LA previously). The Duopoly - telco and cable - don't want competition. They are fighting for a flat pie as it is in a world of diminishing revenue. Because pricing wars have cut into fat, happy margins and increased bandwidth demand has created network congestion which make network upgrades necessary while ARPU remains flat. It's not fun. And the Duopoly doesn't want to spend any more to expand coverage. 

Any area without reliable broadband services is at a disadvantage today - economically and other ways (think tele-medicine, e-Learning). So when a community decides to roll its own broadband, the Duopoly go crazy. (It wasn't too thrilled with Municipal Wi-Fi either). 

GM is a lot like the ILEC. They built what they wanted, when they wanted. GM did not deliver cars that were fuel efficient or hybrid until it went belly up. ILEC's are the same way. DSL was in their lab since the 60's and didn't get rolled out until 1999 - after Rthymns, Covad, Bluestar, and Northpoint were already delivering SDSL to business customers. 

The only reason Ma Bell delivers Ethernet today is because too many competitors, including major MSO's, have made it a mainstay in the marketplace. Important point: Ma Bell didn't bring Ethernet to the marketplace; it followed the market - again.

So without some healthy competition, Fortune 500 companies would just hamstring the American economy the way out Big 3 Auto companies have.