Another option here is municipal fiber. The city or county installs the lines, then offers "dumb pipe" service or leases access to an ISP to offer consumer services. Roads, potable water, sewers, and electricity are offered to many communities through a managed monopoly structure, and are generally affordable. Why not bandwidth?

I have been worried about line-owning ISPs trying to become content providers, because it was obvious that they would try to find ways to privilege their content over non-wire companies like Netflix, Google, Apple, Hulu, Amazon, etc.

But with the net neutrality ruling, it might actually be a good thing. If Verizon doesn't want to be a dumb pipe, then the logical extension is: why own pipes at all?? I could see companies like Comcast or Verizon eventually leasing access on dumb cheap fiber like muni or Google, as a cost-saving measure vs. maintaining their own infrastructure. Comcast already outsources most of their installation and network maintenance to contractors.