I probably shouldn't be feeding this off-topic discussion, however
I also use to work for one of the largest non-RBOC telephone companies
in the US and our average investment for "all facilities" (including
inside and outside plant) to provide basic service was in the
$1400 range per customer (averaged over a population of over
a million customers). The more rural investments were considerably
higher ($5000 range), and the more urban considerably less. There
aren't very many businesses that would say the return on investment
for basic services ($1400 divided by ~$25/month) is anywhere near
reasonable. And when one considers that most telephone companies
have something around 80% to 90% residential service per exchange,
some form of staff to handle business, etc., I don't think I'm going
to start a competetive telephone system for residential services
(nor do you see anyone or any institutions wanting to invest in
those that are primarily residential).
Its also quite interesting to see what telephone switching vendors
like Northern Telecom (etc) charge for software upgrades (i.e., ISDN).
Try to guess at how many zero's behind the leading digit (excluding
any hardware, line cards, and rearrangement of outside facilities).