The data lines that carry our internet traffic makeup part of the infrastructure of this country just like the concrete of the sewers and highways, and infrastructure is an area - an inefficient market - that requires government regulation and funding to be both competitive for its (usually) small number of companies and fair for the public that needs access to it.

Larry Lessig has a good post about how the United States is falling behind the rest of the developed world in internet infrastructure development because of a lack of intelligent regulation in the broadband access market.