They are a good example of why government running things is generally a bad idea.

Regulating an industry is not the same as running it. For an industry to truly not be regulated, it needs to exist in an imaginary space, perhaps next door to physicsland with its frictionless surfaces and spherical cows.

At present the only example of governments running - or at least owning - communications utilities in the United States that I'm aware of are municipal broadband [1] providers, which tend to be much more well-liked by their users than something like Comcast. (and bitterly opposed by The High Priests of The Invisible Hand, who want competition but not that competition)

Of course, other countries have state-owned communications monopolies, which actually run the gamut in terms of quality and cost.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_broadband