A lot of our infrastructure was built by the CCC during the Depression. They installed 89,000 miles of telephone line.
I certainly don't advocate that now, but it's a fact that much of our telecom infrastructure was built by government employees.
Nowadays, the telcos have equipment that can install fiber lines far more efficiently that the original copper network was.
That was about 70 years ago. I don’t think that buildout is germane to the issue of broadband. Today, we would have more than 89,000 circuit-miles of line in a small town.