What about the costs of network equipment? For all of the ports? What about the price of internet from all of the middlemen involved? If I created an ISP today, I would need to buy bandwidth from a Tier1 provider (like Hurricane Electric, or Verizon) and then resell said bandwidth to my customers.<p>The last-mile is also the most expensive part of any cable. You aren&#x27;t allowed to just tear up people&#x27;s yards and run cables through them, you have to work with the local government (or Home-owners association) to get approval. Said approval process may cost money, etc. etc.<p>The most expensive, regulated, and complicated, part of network delivery is the last mile. And that&#x27;s the real reason why local monopolies like Verizon and Comcast exist... except in the cases where Google buys out an entire municipality&#x27;s fiber line and then gets cozy with the local government.