its late and i just saw this subject.i live in BTV,almost downtown where there are no cows
and 2 houses from a network that is run by the city.the reason its run by the city is that its a smaller network that only is going to schools.a big company was going to make a network for the public,but dropped out so the city did it on their own.
i do not have faith in the city as they want to benifit the city,but not the people that live in the city.
as for powerlink,they had a big problem 2 years ago around this time of year.they fixed it earlier last year with an upgrade.i been stable since and been downloading alot faster then dsl :P ,but would like to see another option.