I thought that at least here in Missouri[1] and in numerous other states[2], the exclusivity contract is no longer a lever the municipalities have, thanks to statewide franchising laws.
AT&T was the main lobbyist behind these laws during their U-Verse deployment. The statewide franchising would let them deploy U-Verse broadly without having to negotiate with individual city councils (and deal with "sure you can sell cable here, so long as there's free cable for the firehouse, free internet for every school, etc").
With 91 municipalities in St Louis alone, this'd be an expensive barrier to entry for AT&T when they can just buy a state law to avoid it all. The law also lets existing incumbents get out of their franchise contracts with municipalities and go statewide if a competitor enters.
AT&T got busted trying to test Project Lightspeed (now called U-Verse) in Geneva, Illinois. Geneva figured out that this super-DSL was really and end run around Geneva's CATV franchise agreements and shut it down. That's why they went for the statewide legislative overrides.
Maybe, but no joy getting state wide franchising in Illinois. In fact, 65 ILCS 5 (Illinois Municipal Code) Section 11-42-11 specifically grants municipalities under 2M people (i.e. the entire state except Chicago) the authority to negotiate and execute CATV franchises.
I'm most depressed by the "fast forward to 2006" part of this article, where they mention 3-6 Mbps service being delivered.
Fast forward to 2013, AT&T will still not offer anything faster than 3Mbps DSL to my home, and they charge a princely sum for it.
I can get 30/4 from Charter for the price of that 3Mbps DSL, but Charter's customer service is so awful that it makes AT&T look like Zappos or Nordstrom.
Where I lived, I was so far from the telco that the copper gave out after 1Mbit. And we weren't scheduled for U-Verse. Remember, all U-Verse does is shorten the run of copper wire from your house to the DSL cabinet.
AT&T was the main lobbyist behind these laws during their U-Verse deployment. The statewide franchising would let them deploy U-Verse broadly without having to negotiate with individual city councils (and deal with "sure you can sell cable here, so long as there's free cable for the firehouse, free internet for every school, etc").
With 91 municipalities in St Louis alone, this'd be an expensive barrier to entry for AT&T when they can just buy a state law to avoid it all. The law also lets existing incumbents get out of their franchise contracts with municipalities and go statewide if a competitor enters.
[1] http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/BTS_Web/Bill.aspx?SessionTyp...
[2] http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/telecom/statewide-video-...