Land of the free market on broadband

We hear a lot about public private partnerships on this side of the pond but a fascinating battle on publicly funded versus privately funded broadband networks is playing out unexpectedly in the land of the free market. I've briefly mentioned this issue before of local government in the US funding the construction of local broadband citywide networks and the notion of perceving insurance of widespread access to such networks as a public service. News.com had a nice summary of the story yesterday.