  Nearly 20 states allow only private telecommunications
providers to install high-speed broadband networks. In the rush
to gain market share, national and even rural telecommunications
companies generally have ignored smaller markets, saying they'll
eventually wire smaller towns and cities?but at their
convenience.  Some communities couldn't wait. When they
installed fiber optic wire line or wireless broadband networks
on their own, private providers filed suit.  That was true of
Bristol, Va., which installed a fiber optic system five years
ago. The city prevailed when challenged in court, much to the
relief of Kelly Miller, an engineering aide in the public works
department who gets requests weekly from developers seeking
typography data files.  "Fiber offers us the ability to receive
and send large data files, such as the aerial photography of
Bristol, which is 131?2 square miles," he says. "Those files can
run almost 14 gigabits of data, and there's no way we could do
that over a dial-up connection." Mill