Kinda, not quite right.
Just checked at https://epbfi.com/internet/, 100 Mbps is $57.99... not free, but not bad. Triple-play goes for $132.82. It ain't Sweden, but not awful.
And whereas Bob the Politician would like campaign funding for keeping his job (would that be a part-time or a full-time job, by the way? term limits? what's the pay? does he really give a shit about keeping that job in a local city council?), he can get a lot more campaign donations by getting into bed with commercial internet providers with deeper pockets then some small-change locals.
And while one state's corruption laws vary from another's, a politician putting his friend (or relative) in charge of a government program, and then receiving campaign donations back, is at least easy-pickings for a local TV eye-team investigation report. Taking such a man's seat in the next election would be like shooting a fish in a barrel... just run on a campaign of anti-corruption and eliminating government waste. I'll bet Frontier or Comcast would be happy to pay for printing up your campaign signs.
And don't think customers who get service from Frontier don't send money through the Council's hands. Be it through fees or taxes, the City gets paid. Always. The only difference is whether there are shareholders who get a piece of the action.
When Comcast runs the Internet, a substantial cut of the profit goes to shareholders, and another cut goes to expanding territory and growth, again to please shareholders to thereby drive up stock price and raise the value of the company, further increasing the wealth of the shareholders. When the City sets up its own internet, all profit goes back to the City to be redistributed by the Council, maybe to upgrade equipment, maybe to fix roads or schools, maybe as a local tax cut.
If the City Council's internet starts to suck, well, the customers are also voters, and they can replace a politician, maybe with the guy next door. On the other hand, if Comcast starts to suck in a town where there's no competition, customers can call customer service and wait on hold until they go insane. Comcast has enough customers that they don't have to listen to any customers. They only have to listen to shareholders... that is, shareholders with enough voting stock to threaten the sitting Board of Directors (currently, their stock price is $55.81, for just one little share; you can look up how many shares you'd have to buy to get anyone at the company to listen to you).
The point is, if you're a Chattanooga customer, and you're upset, you have a lot better chance of someone giving a shit than if you're a Comcast customer. Local politicians can fuck things up, sure, but unless the local politician is aiming to move higher to state of federal office (where the money is), then he's got to live with you, and probably would just as well keep you happy and off his lawn. A board member or senior management in Comcast, on the other hand, will never give a shit about who you are or what you think of your service, ever, unless maybe you start a class-action lawsuit, or a local broadband initiative in your home town. Then, you'll hear from their lawyers.
