Actually, yes.

You see,  Chattanooga has a municiplally owned fiber optic network:

For thousands of years, Native Americans used the river banks here to cross a gap in the Appalachian Mountains, and trains sped through during the Civil War to connect the eastern and western parts of the Confederacy. In the 21st century, it is the Internet that passes through Chattanooga, and at lightning speed.

“Gig City,” as Chattanooga is sometimes called, has what city officials and analysts say was the first and fastest — and now one of the least expensive — high-speed Internet services in the United States. For less than $70 a month, consumers enjoy an ultrahigh-speed fiber-optic connection that transfers data at one gigabit per second. That is 50 times the average speed for homes in the rest of the country, and just as rapid as service in Hong Kong, which has the fastest Internet in the world.

………

Since the fiber-optic network switched on four years ago, the signs of growth in Chattanooga are unmistakable. ………

………

EPB, the city-owned utility formerly named Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, said that only about 3,640 residences, or 7.5 percent of its Internet-service subscribers, are signed up for the Gigabit service offered over the fiber-optic network. Roughly 55 businesses also subscribe. The rest of EPB’s customers subscribe to a (relatively) slower service offered on the network of 100 megabits per second, which is still faster than many other places in the country.

Gee.  The private sector, largely unregulated, cable and phone companies deliver what is among the slowest and most expensive internet service in the developed world, and publicly owned providers outperform them.

Maybe it’s because the for-profit companies see preserving, and leveraging, their near monopoly status as more ……… well ……… profitable than improving the quality and price service.

Hoocoodanode?