So, before everyone goes off on how it's only big business that's preventing great, high-speed internet, there are municipalities in this country that do run their own cable company.
http://www.shrewsbury-ma.gov/egov/docs/1231423976788.htm
That's a perfect example. Town owned and operated and it offers service up to 10Mbps for $50. More expensive and slower than the internet offered in many surrounding places. Oh, and they have a monthly data transfer cap that makes Comcast look good. At $40, you only get 75GB of transfer.
I think it's wonderful if municipalities want to try and roll their own competitors to commercial cable/phone/internet companies. However, it isn't all roses. It's expensive to build and operate and you need to get enough capacity to the internet to serve everyone's speeds.
The threat might have been better than actually building it.