And as I understand it, one reason they did that was the threat of 'neutrality': FiOS only made sense financially if they could slowly turn a (numbers ballparked) $100 cable TV & phone bill into a $200 TV & PPV movies & games & video phone & PPV sports bill via "value-added" services. Neutrality would make that flatly impossible, though I think VZ figured out that even without neutrality, most of what they thought they were going to sell was going to be delivered over the IP connection by third parties anyway.

But they didn't start charging $200 for the service, they just stopped offering it.

That's a lot of money to invest on the hope that the majority of people will more than double their outlay on Internet connectivity.

Verizon stopped FIOS rollout because regulation made it unattractive. We were set to get FIOS in Wilmington. The government demanded Verizon build it throughout the city, which made no sense because most of the city is a ghetto. The government wouldn't budge and we got no FIOS.

As for water pipes: in many places they're a century old and leeching toxins into the drinking water. My wife worked on a project at Northwestern that studied this issue in Midwest cities. Outside a few rich cities, infrastructure like water is in terrible shape. Because there's not much profit motive in building dumb pipes, and the municipalities don't have the money to give much public subsidy.

Great. If they won't provide the service required, take away their license and give it to someone who will.

Yes, because we live in a magical world where companies are chomping at the bit to invest billions of dollars in heavily regulated industries for single digit returns.