said by en102:This 'video franschise law' promoted by teleco (AT&T) to deploy Uverse worked. I think AT&T also strong armed the state with some threats of pulling its call centers out.
Give it a little bit of time...costs will be as high as the rest of the country.
The strong arm tactics were also paired with a promise to the state to deploy basic DSL to 100 unsevered rural communities "within the next year". A promise they did actually uphold, in December of 2006. The "explosion" of new broadband connections may have taken place, but there's no indication of any ongoing expansion of services taking place.