You make an implicit assumption that a monopoly can't be the best way to organize an industry, and that competition is always better. I'm not convinced by this

You make an implicit assumption that a monopoly can't be the best way to organize an industry, and that competition is always better. I'm not convinced by this assumption as i've seen contrary evidence. I've seen monopolies doing a great job, and i've seen competition destroy quality of service and price. I would agree that the government needs to mitigate private actors. This regulation can take the form of splitting a monopoly but it can also take the form of keeping it a monopoly and regulating it by having a presence on the Board or through law. The idea that we need multiple groups of people working on solving the same goal concurrently doesn't strike me of a one-size-fits-all approach. Multiple competing restaurants in a town is probably the way to go. Having virtual operators on the back of one physical infra as is the case with phone carriers for instance I would say is probably causing lots of overheads. I've seen it first hand from the inside. Turns out it's really complex to virtualize infra and have tenant-based billing. The only real difference is now you have 5 companies competing on marketing and offers on top of the same physical reality. Marketing costs can't vanish so the consumer is losing that money one way or another