I think the past actions of these companies speaks for themselves.

The question YOU should ask yourself is why you think ATT & comsat will do a 180 turn and stop their attempts to kill the free market after this.

They will not, that's why we need better ISPs.

But you've been an advocate of deregulation all over this thread. The barrier of entry to becoming an ISP is high. A sort of compromise is to use sensible regulation to protect users from the active players. The keyword here is sensible, because I don't care for government mandated regulations. I do recognize that they are necessary. Profits (among other things) cloud judgement, and there are some ruthless, despicable people running companies.

Unless a company with lots of expendable income is going to enter the market as a competitor, there won't be very many new ISPs that can offer more than aDSL speeds. Most US communities have one or two local ISP outside of the cable company and teleco providers like Time Warner and AT&T. The speeds are only good for people who check email and don't mind watching video at 480p. The other is satellite with similar speeds at even higher prices.

What created those barriers, regulation?

I edited my comment. The key takeaway from the edit was sensible regulation.

To answer your question though, no. It was misused infrastructure that was basically given away to telecos. Instead of sharing it like a utility, they took it and ran with it.

I don't at all agree with GP's point, but "the infrastructure being given away" is, objectively, an instance of regulation. Laws were passed, government bureaucracy was involved, papers were signed in triplicate.

If we're really on the regulation-is-bad-mmkay train, then also on the chopping block needs to be franchise agreements, agreements where high-density housing buildings can only use one provider, and so on.