In South Korea I have a 5 gigabit connection for $20/month. I could have chosen between at least three competing companies, and that's for regular land lines.

In South Korea I have a 5 gigabit connection for $20/month. I could have chosen between at least three competing companies, and that's for regular land lines. The US is so much larger than the South Korea, but this shows that it is possible to have three companies' wires going through the same space. Interestingly the same companies provide telephone and TV; there's no distinction as far as I know between a phone and a cable company. They are data network companies. Btw you can read an interesting history of phone monopoly in Jeremy Rifkin's "Zero Marginal Cost Society," starting at page 49. From a technical perspective, couldn't you theoretically have a network of big tubes with several company wires inside? Maybe the mother tube could be paid for by municipalities, and then individual companies could add their wires to without having to rip everything up each time? The companies then pay for the space in the tube, perhaps like licensing air waves? There are probably problems with this, but isn't there a better way to accommodate competition? The situation in the US is awful.