> The cable companies last mile generally runs over copper

I use "copper" in this context to refer to POTS lines, not coaxial lines (sorry, it's jargon-y). The two were built under very different regimes, and it's not productive to conflate them.

> you need to look into the initial subsidies when it was first laid down, the most common being a local monopoly.

In general, a "subsidy" is something that yields a return to the company or industry above the market return. A local monopoly is not necessarily, and usually isn't, a subsidy. The monopoly "carrot" is combined with a yoke: universal service requirements and regulated rates. Local utility monopolies generally earn lower returns than unregulated companies. Indeed, it's the height of irony that you call local monopolies a "subsidy" then cite Kushnick further down, whose whole shtick is that deregulation (i.e. elimination of the local monopolies) was a huge "subsidy" to the telecom companies.

Also, the cable industry was deregulated in 1992. DOCSIS 1.0 wasn't released until 1997. I doubt much of the infrastructure that was built under exclusive franchises is still there, because the mid/late-1990's involved widespread network upgrades to accommodate cable internet. Whatever is still there is more like the "last 100 feet" not the "last mile."

> Read up on http://www.ntia.doc.gov/report/2014/nineteenth-quarterly-sta.... for some federal info, state level subsides are more complex.

The BTOP is one of the rare federal telecom programs that's actually a subsidy, and very little of that money has been handed yet. The vast majority of the "subsidies" for broadband are actually transfer payments from the Universal Service Fund. This amounts to billions per year, but it's funded by a tax on the telecom industry. It's as if you taxed Macbook Pro owners 15% and distributed that money to help poor people buy Macbook Airs. Nobody would call that a "subsidy" to Apple.

Your last article is Kushnick's usual Glenn Beck-esque "connect the dots" bullshit. He's stuck in 1970 and think it should be the government's job to set prices for telecom services, and tries to count any increase in price as a "subsidy." Does it matter what a cable company calls its price hike? Is Uber's $1 "safe ride fee" a "subsidy?" It's absolutely inane to call an increase in the price of a product a "subsidy." Subsidies necessarily involve some sort of external transfer, not transfers within the contractual privity of a buyer and seller.

The monopoly bit is a subsidy, sure there are strings attached but they could also be attached to using government land like roads. Afterall good luck building a network without crossing a road.

I don't agree with Kushnick, my point is if a company advertised bubblegum for 50c and charged 90c when you got to the store it's illegal false advertizing. The telecom industry is vary much in favor of being able to do the same kind of price manipulation.

PS: Subsidizing undeserved or low population areas is paying for the last mile, it's not like they don't get to charge the new customers.

> The monopoly bit is a subsidy, sure there are strings attached but they could also be attached to using government land like roads.

The rate regulation and universal service requirement more than outweigh the advantage from the monopoly. At the end of the day, regulated local monopolies make lower returns than unregulated companies.

> PS: Subsidizing undeserved or low population areas is paying for the last mile, it's not like they don't get to charge the new customers.

That money doesn't come out of the government's pocket. It comes from a tax on the company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund#Backgrou... ("As of the first quarter of 2013, the USF fee, equals 16.1 percent of a telecom company's interstate end-user revenues. As of the second quarter of 2013, the USF fee is 15.5 percent.") Second, the telecom company is not allowed to charge the new customers the cost of actually providing the service.