[soundwave106]

The first point is valid IMHO in a way. Like a lot of small towns in Massachusetts, Charlemont uses an open town meeting style of government, which means all residents have a vote in determining how the town is run.

I would personally believe that if there are issues with quality of service or price or whatnot, this governance style allows for a much better opportunity of addressing issues. Versus being run by a very large monopoly that honestly may not care that much about the ongoing needs of a 1200 population town (read: small revenue source) in the future.

A competitive environment would be better if possible, but failing that, I personally would take a municipal broadband system with a good degree of accountability built into the town governance over an oligopoly.