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When DSL was first being rolled out, this was possible in this area. Outside companies were setting up equipment in the telephone company's central office. I chose an outside company (can't remember the name). At the time, the telephone company wasn't even supplying DSL out of that exchange but a few independents were. They all went out of business eventually when cable internet DSL service from the phone company got better/cheaper. 786k DSL (which most consumers feel is acceptable) costs less than $15 a month here. That's less than an AOL dial-up subscription.

That is precisely what I was thinking of. That's where the lobbying power of the Baby Bells shows. Here the argument was that their local loop infrastructure was built while under protection of government-granted monopoly, so the local incumbents were forced to separate out their infrastructure business and sell the "raw" service to everybody for basically cost price. Not so in the US...