Public utility companies in Franklin and Benton counties in Washington have already built fiber backbones: Now they've built Wi-Fi antennas in towns and are opening their networks to any ISP that wants to offer services to residents there. The antenna recently hoisted in Pasco, Wash. can serve businesses or residents in a 1.5 mile radius.
I wrote a story for the Seattle Times about a year and a half ago about Washington public utility companies that were building fiber networks. These utilities have the rights of way to build such networks and they do it because the areas have no other options for broadband access. These are rural regions that the DSL and cable modem companies ignore. The utilities are looking to wireless technologies to bridge the last mile.
Many of these areas have laws that prevent the utilities from actually providing the service to end users so they lease their networks to ISPs. That's a great idea as it promotes competition. Also, the utilities must be offering decent rates to the ISPs. One quoted in the story expects to deliver service for as low as $25 a month.