Only since recently do I live somewhere with actual competition (RCN, Comcast, and FiOS; only Comcast providing IPv6). I do count myself lucky.
It's amazing what a difference competition makes; I pay the same price today ($40/mo) for 50 Mbps from RCN as I did a month ago for 3 Mbps from Comcast. Regulation cannot come soon enough; we as a tech community must do all we can to oust that corporate capitalist tool Ajit Pai from the FCC.
Uh, what you seem to have is actual competition going on in your area. More regulation will not necessarily help bring about more of that. I do agree that Ajit Pai seems to be a giant toolbox.
The FCC, pre-Trump, was starting to take down state legislation prohibiting community based/owned deployments. Both the physical layer and ISP service; and as regards the service, at least some community deployments allowed private ISP's to purchase capacity/access and resell their service as a competitor to the public service.
Federal regulation trumping (or not, as it were) state xxxxxxxxxx [edit out "regulation"; I meant to type "legislation"] that had been purchased and manipulated by large, private ISP's (the Bell babies, Comcast et al.) to eliminate competition.
Note further that those big ISP's often secured substantial (i.e. enormous) tax breaks and other incentives, in return for agreeing to "universal broadband deployment" in the relevant state/community's service area. They have almost universally reneged on their side of these agreements, sometimes e.g. lobbying the state legislature to let them out of their side of the agreement almost before the ink is dry on their signature to it.
Going back in time, early trunk capacity was to a significant extent government built and government owned. There wouldn't have been an "Internet" without the Feds. And, once opened up, they kept access on a rather equal footing. This might not have all been "codified" regulation -- though I guess that and/or a set of "operating rules" grew somewhat organically. But it certainly controlled and set precedent.
So, both presently and in the past, "regulation" has actually fostered competition.
And yeah, the corporate lawyer is a giant tool. Quelle surprise!
It's amazing what a difference competition makes; I pay the same price today ($40/mo) for 50 Mbps from RCN as I did a month ago for 3 Mbps from Comcast. Regulation cannot come soon enough; we as a tech community must do all we can to oust that corporate capitalist tool Ajit Pai from the FCC.