An interesting parallel is how much water/sewer, electricity, and natural gas connections cost. Cities have been providing these for centuries now and it's generally about $30-$50 base cost per month to connect to the utilities. This is for physical infrastructure requiring continual maintenance and treatment plants and movement of physical goods.
Internet service is almost static once installed; fiber lasts for decades (barring visits from backhoes) and the networking equipment can be fairly centralized and doesn't cost a lot to keep the lights on. It's insane that ISPs charge the rates that they do. Multi-mode SFPs are $50, switches are low thousands for enterprise grade, a couple long range 100G SFPs are another thousand. $50/month * 48 ports in a neighborhood pays that off pretty fast.
Fiber can't be any harder to install than fluid-filled pipes or electrical cables.
Internet service is almost static once installed; fiber lasts for decades (barring visits from backhoes) and the networking equipment can be fairly centralized and doesn't cost a lot to keep the lights on. It's insane that ISPs charge the rates that they do. Multi-mode SFPs are $50, switches are low thousands for enterprise grade, a couple long range 100G SFPs are another thousand. $50/month * 48 ports in a neighborhood pays that off pretty fast.
Fiber can't be any harder to install than fluid-filled pipes or electrical cables.