Residents also described problems with wireless service that could serve as the only replacement for copper networks in areas that AT&T hasn’t deemed profitable enough for fiber lines.

When I lived rurally, I had two choices - landline or edge cellular network which was unreliable. I also had the absolute best connectivity of all of my neighbors because not only was I the only one able to have an account on the ISP’s over-subscribed DSL line (at a whopping 1.5 Mbps), I was also fortunate enough to have the house with the highest elevation - literally on top of the hill. No one else had any cell reception at all. Eventually AT&T actually gave me a femtocell box, which routed all of my cellular calls across my shitty DSL, but they weren’t having to pay the fees to the edge provider.

Part of being granted monopoly rights when doing things like laying lines is that you have to take the good with the bad.