Now we’re getting into the weeds. Generally, telecom infrastructure is run along poles or conduits, usually owned by the power company, sometimes the telephone company (or jointly).
In New York City, a Verizon subsidiary called ECS operates a conduit network under an 1891 franchise. It pays the city a fee based on the assessed value of real estate, about $20 million per year. Verizon pays ECS standardized rates to use the conduit, but the city alleges that ECS sets rates too low, and the shortfall is about $260 million over six years. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/FP0.... Of that, 80% is allocable to Verizon, or about $42 million per year owed to the city.
The franchise fee is 5% of gross. Assuming about one million FIOS households in NYC in the steady state (consistent with Verizon’s uptake rate of about 40% and 2-3 million households passed), plus the average revenue per subscriber of $110 per month, that’s $65 million per year paid to the city.
On top of that, you’ve got to consider the value of build-out requirements. The city forces Verizon to build in neighborhoods that aren’t otherwise sufficiently profitable to justify building in. That’s a concsssion extracted by the city that also must be accounted for, because each house passed that doesn’t subscribe costs Verizon hundreds of dollars. (Going back further in history, this was the quid pro quo between AT&T and governments. My FIOS is run on a pole jointly owned by Verizon and BGE. Is this a subsidy to Verizon? On one hand, the easement is valuable. On the other hand, the pole was inherited from AT&T, who got the easement in return for running a phone line it otherwise would not have, into what used to be farmland.)
New York is also a bit of an odd situation because of ECS. In most places, the power company owns the conduit of the poles, and unlike ECS has no incentive to undercharge for attachments.
It's possible that it's worth more than a 5% cut--in which case it's still a subsidy.