Agreed, we do give a lot to private companies in order to get the benefits of their products, and they're constantly pushing for more. I just feel that the internet as a utility is still too new for us to know exactly what the right regulator regime is or the optimal role of government in actually providing internet services.

Ideally regulation would be more reactive than proactive. Rather than defining explicitly the terms and services that ISPs must provide, we'd let them compete with each other and try different products and business models. The government would only step in when they do something that turns out to be harmful. The trick would be to actually step in where needed and not just let anything go.