On Thursday, April 4, 2013 11:52:56 AM UTC-4, wrote:

Gore was instrumental in passing a law that threw a lot of tax money
at the backbone infrastructure that the telcoms were already building.
You can easily argue that this was the kick start for broadband and
"fast" internet we are now used to,
The open question is how long it would have taken the telcoms without
this infusion of tax money and whether there was some federal help in
getting easements, although most of the fiber followed existing copper
paths.

The company I work for has done business with all of the Class I railroads in the US, some for over 30 years. Way back when, they owned and operated their own microwave backbones that spanned their entire rail networks, some covering 10+ states. With the advent of fiber, they all made deals with the telecoms to allow fiber to be installed in their track right-of-ways. Some negotiated for a certain amount of bandwidth, some for dark fiber. Of course, those microwave backbones are mostly just memories now.