If i recall correctly, rural electrification came about when some brilliant financiers came up with a way to finance the effort so that private companies would invest in the infrastructure. I’m sure regulation is coming, so the real argument is what those regs will be. One point your essay doesn’t afftrdd is what to do about entities like Netflix, who use up so much bandwidth that they marginalize other traffic. Netflix alone is responsible for almost 60% of US internet traffic, but net neutrality said they should have equal access.

If one company put 60% of the traffic on the freeways in your town, does anyone doubt that every other motorist wouldn’t demand they be more heavily regulated simply to make room for the rest of us and to firce them to pay the lion’s share of infrastructure investment? Let’s look at your electric utility example again. Currently, governments aren’t trying to improve electrical infrastructure, they’re passing laws galore forcing consumers to do everything in their power to use less electricity. New light bulbs, new insulation requirements, pushing people to change their time of day usage patterns, and on and on. That’s what we can expect to happen with highly regulated broadband. Can there be any doubt that governments instead of making large infrastructure investments will go after the netflix of the world demanding they stop using bandwidth. The bottom line of course is that heavy regulation will dramatically slow innovation. Not a great idea.