It's not even close to unregulated capitalism. in many areas Comcast has a legislated monopoly.

Google is not some magic unicorn that's going to save us from old bloated mega corps like comcast. the only reason google rolls fiber to the places it does is cause the local governments are willing to play ball. and the bay area isn't known for it's streamlined government. in fact, you folks are at the bottom of a very long list. (http://pando.com/2014/02/25/having-being-burned-once-before-...)

The only thing that will save the US internet market is competition, google's efforts are great, I'm not convinced it will be enough. I think innovations in Wireless tech, that will allow more reliable and widespread WISP's will help. The old guard of the wireline providers have built the walls quite high and it will take time for even big players like google to wear them down.

Don't you mean over-regulated, crony capitalism, government granted monopoly? Pure evil?

Corporatism. There are laws that prevent true capitalistic competition from happening.

Nothing wrong in my book with charging, so long as the pipe is open, free and clear. - meaning net neutrality, and no filtering, or dns funniness - like a common carrier.

We're the only country in the world (mostly) with largely unlimited broadband, many countries seem to have quota - and its not as if an unlimited option doesn't remain, I have Business Class from them, which is and will remain unlimited, but it costs, 120, including 5 statics.

Given that most of the Bay Are is AT&T territory, and Verizon has pretty much stopped FIOS rollouts, I don't think it's very likely that Verizon will be overbuilding the Bay Area any time soon.

It's regulation that has given cable companies local monopolies. It's regulation that's trying to forbid municipalities from building open access networks.