I work in telecom for 10+ years. Google was trying to disrupt the system but their college interns that developed their business model were ignorant of all he variables. Most importantly they either forgot unions existed, or they hoped they could bend local government to their will. A lot of the slowdown for Google's rollout is they want to move other utilities' stuff. For example: they wanted to be able to drive up to a telephone pole and move AT&T/Verizon/etc.'s cable up or down the pole as needed, or to make room for their pole-mounted devices. This was obviously not cool with the major telecoms, as the last thing you want is people touching your stuff and causing outages. Second, the unions were furious because they have a contract with AT&T/Verizon/etc that says they are the exclusive work force to touch those cables on poles. Not to mention google was only building out "last-mile" services and still used AT&T/Verizon/etc.'s infrastructure to provide edge and backbone service.
IMO, people need to work with their municipalities and build out local municipal networks. AT&T/Verizon/etc. do very little of the actual construction these days, it's all contracted out to MASTEC or whoever is in your location, the ISPs simply design the project. Municipalities could do it this way as well and at least provide service to the higher density areas relatively cheaply. Iirc, Chattanooga TN has a municipal network for downtown and some of the suburbs. Municipal networks won't work in the sticks though. If you live out in the country cell service (or reusing the spectrum) is the only economical way to get service to cleetus living in his tar paper shack.
