Another real-world example of why communities cannot depend on the private sector to build the infrastructure needed by the community, Scottsburg Indiana suffered from telecommunications underinvestment and was about to lose jobs because the companies could not get the connections they needed.

This article reports that the cost of T1 lines was $1600/month but other sources suggested they were as low as a mere $1300/month. Nonetheless, the costs were prohibitive and benefits from building a publicly owned system were immense:

The total cost to build the city-wide network was only $385,000, a figure that includes all systems and software. The result is broadband everywhere at affordable prices, meaning that businesses that need broadband can get it, and sometimes even save money, too. For example, school officials estimate that they are saving approximately $16,000 per month.