Read the full Mother Jones article on municipal broadband (enter code MJZL6Y to read full article): The fine folks at Mother Jones sent me an access code and permission to post it so you can read the full article they published in this month's issue about the Tri-Cities, Illinois, battle with SBC and Comcast on one side and the city's business-backed goals of providing municipal broadband on the other.
Interestingly, the Tri-Cities now have substantially greater broadband services: the two incumbents spent hundreds of thousands to defeat two ballot initiatives, and then probably tens of millions to upgrade their networks.
I don't necessarily agree with the last statement. We had all the services we have now before this debate. The problem with Comcast was that the digital cable, on demand, and DVR features were not coming fast enough.
SBC has been offering the same product for many years. SBC Yahoo! were partnered long before this, as well. I have had DSL at my Batavia residence since 1999, but now it just costs cheaper. In 1999, Flashcom provided the DSL through Ameritech for about 40 dollars. It's now 20 dollars, from SBC.