The US telecom companies were not given something like a hundred billion dollars. They were never paid those sums and they were also not given tax breaks in that amount either. That's one of the great forever repeating myths on HN (it's useful as a propaganda item, thus the repeating). There is even an HN member that has been repeatedly correcting the myth for years, here you go:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556