When has regulation been the solution to questions of access? Consider radio. The FCC was started under the erroneous principle that radio stations would drown each other out in the absence of regulation, even though that wasn't happening and showed no signs of happening. (In fact, FM technology makes it pretty hard for radio stations to interfere with each other in normal operation -- the capture effect, as someone mentioned in comments to another article recently, prevents that.) And what has the FCC done? It's increased the cost of radio stations doing business so that average people can't start their own commercial radio station -- the licensure costs too much! It's restricted speech on the airwaves (ever heard of the Pacifica case?). And it's granted government more and more power, power it has no business wielding.

The government does not need to take a stance on the Internet business, any more than it needed to take a stance on the radio business. If it does so, it will only proceed to violate people's rights the way it has in radio -- restricting speech, limiting control to those who are rich enough to pay for a license. (Should you have to be licensed to run an ISP? To operate a Web site? How much will that license cost you? What restrictions will come with it? Ham radio operators aren't even allowed to say "shit", or to discuss politics, on the air...)

The government does not need to create competition; it needs to stop endowing monopolies like the monopolies so many cable companies have. (Many people seem to think that government is opposed to monopolies, because of antitrust laws. As it happens, antitrust is the exception; almost always, where there is a monopoly, it was created by the government. Just consider NSI...)