Complete deregulation would not solve this problem. The problem is that it is really, really expensive to lay brand new fiber in most places. If we had comple

Complete deregulation would not solve this problem. The problem is that it is really, really expensive to lay brand new fiber in most places. If we had complete deregulation, the companies that already have the fiber laid would dominate. A competitor might look at a market, and see the price that the incumbent is charging and think they could provide the service for cheaper and still recover the cost of laying fiber. However, if they decided to actually start laying fiber, the incumbent would just lower prices and the new company would be unable to compete (since they have to recover the cost of laying fiber while the incumbent doesn't). The only way for true competition in this market is to do what a lot of countries do... have regulations that say whoever lays fiber has to agree to rent it to competitors at reasonable prices. That way, you don't have to keep laying redundant fiber just to compete. The free market would just lead to monopolies.