If it were up to me, internet access would be treated as public infrastructure, like public roads. Failing that, I'd have the government provide some baseline service, like pulling optical fiber to every post office, and allowing local governments to use it for municipal wireless, to create competition with telcos. (I'd do the same with banking--a Fed ATM in every post office. Likewise, the public option.)
Of course, that's not on the table either.
What is on the table is "private sector" competition. And there is a ruckus going on about that right now in wireless broadband. There's a company trying to enter the national wireless market, LightSquared, that the telecoms would prefer not have enter.
They've got a good letter to Congress set up in support of more competition in the wireless broadband market.