I am sending you this article because it would be easy for us in Bellingham to make the same arguement. We do not have any provider providing us with adequate service at a reasonable price, hence our PUDs could. Yeah, we have some weird laws in Washington that virtually require a 3rd party in most places to sell services. However, most of the providers provide inadequate, over priced, services so most PUDs should be able to start providing services directly if they want to. Since, for example, the only net-neutral private fiber provider in Bellingham charges $250 a month for only 100 MBit service and is obscenely expensive to hook up to. Google charges $70 for 1 GBit in Kansas City and in Japan it's $25. So basically, no one provides adequate service at a reasonable price in WA state. Especially in Bellingham. In fact, most Bellinghammers only have access to anti-net neutral, anti-first amendment, providers on top of it. In short, thanks to our government dragging its heels on providing infrastructure, and coddling anti-net neutral companies, we're all getting robbed blind. This also makes Bellingham less attractive for next-generation business.