More than allowed - in the EU at least, telecoms (wireline at least) is heavily regulated, and monopoly infrastructure providers (i.e. wire owners) are required

More than allowed - in the EU at least, telecoms (wireline at least) is heavily regulated, and monopoly infrastructure providers (i.e. wire owners) are required to provide wholesale services and operate on those services for their own retail arms. Mobile operators have slightly less regulation in the way of competitition but there are similar requirements for vMNOS etc. So yeah, overall margins tend to be smaller and there's healthier competition overall, but telecoms is still flush with cash in general.