[foobarian]

I thought it was the other way around, i.e. the telcos were given a monopoly on the wires, in order to avoid a bunch of different companies all running their own cables and turning the streets into an ugly mess. In exchange there is a bunch of regulation such as they are required to provide service to rural areas at a loss.

[rayiner]

Its both. Monopoly with infrastructure providers is inevitable, so in many cases the government created regulated monopolies instead of letting unregulated monopolies arise naturally.

That said, telcos are not monopolies. They're in a hybrid state of regulated competition.