The article puzzles me. In my research, I found Comcrap and others will run 300' from the road for free, then they charge you. Our house is just at 1/3 of a mile off the road and it was going to cost us $17,000 (approximately) if we COULD get Comcrap. While some of each bill may go to infrastructure, that does not include last mile stuff for people out of their range or in neighborhoods where the resident density is not high enough for them to consider ir profitable. People here have lots of at least a few acres, so in the 1 mile of road they won't cover, instead of having lots that are a few hundred feet wide without much yard and a lot of residents, houses here are much more spread out, so they don't want to bother with us.
In this county, we're just outside of Richmond, VA. Most of the county is heavily populated. Comcast and Verizon (with FiOS) are both making millions each year off this county. I think the county (as many have) dropped the ball on this. I think the franchise agreement that lets them come in here and set up their cables and dig and so on should require them to submit plans that will target 100% residential coverage of the county within the next 5 years. It should be at THEIR expense. They're making so much off this county, they should be willing to be good citizens of it and give back as well as take. The federal government is now making money available to them. That money should go to the citizens. We should be able to apply and get enough to pay for them running the line to our house or something like that. It should not just go to the cable and internet companies who have treated people like shit or ignored them for decades because they didn't want to run the lines out.
And addressing the line being yours or theirs: You don't want to own it. I say that has someone who has had to trench and bury cable and who, recently, had to find a break in 500' of power line that was 2' underground for the whole way. If something goes wrong, how will you fix it? How will you find the break in several hundred feet of underground data cable? (With a power cable, you can *sometimes* use a ground fault locator, but that may not work so well for a data line.) If it's theirs, maintaining it is their responsibility. Which is one more reason the customer should not have to pay and the should be required to run the line. It costs them money, but it's the responsibility that comes with the territory.