When I worked for a certain large telco, we used to get emails from our "CEO of {State Name}" asking us to support their lobbying efforts to shut down community ISP initiatives by donating to their PAC and contacting our legislators trying to make it look like there was grassroots support. These state level CEOs were strictly lobbyists.

Considering the company I worked for didn't even serve the community I lived in but multiple startups wanted to provide us fiber service but ran into all the road blocks my telco and others pushed, I was less than thrilled knowing the company i worked for was actively trying to block providing better internet to older neighborhoods.

Longmont, CO has had municipal fiber since 2013. In 2005 the state passed a cable industry-sponsored bill requiring all municipalities to pass a ballot measure before they could build municipal broadband over 256kbps. Longmont had such a measure in 2009 and it failed due to campaigning by private ISPs. It passed later, and in the years since the speed cap has been removed. But yeah, it was a fight against private industry to use infrastructure _built and owned by the city_ for its only possible use.

https://coloradosun.com/2023/05/24/municipal-internet-sb-152...