In other words, the reason you don't have options for service providers is that it's expensive to be a provider; and the reason it's expensive to be a provider is...government regulations.
> and the reason it's expensive to be a provider is...government regulations.
If by government regulations you mean "the fact that running cable means acquiring access rights across large numbers of privately held properties, and government protection of property rights makes you have to negotiate with each of them for the right to access unless you can piggy back on someone else that already has an easement without exceeding the scope of the existing easement", then, sure, its about government regulations.
But its the kind of government regulations that even the people who complain about government regulations generally support (often, support most emphatically).
There needs to be some regulation to make that feasible, no doubt. But why does that function justify forcing cable companies to run cable to areas that aren't economically justifiable? Or to put it a slightly different way: while the public is entitled to make equal access a priority, it can't complain about providers not wanting to enter the market or not wanting to invest more private money in regulated service. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
You left out a key qualifier: "running cable to every household means acquiring access rights..." The post I responded to specifically mentioned the FCC regulations requiring equal access to all households as the driver of the high cost of being a provider. Without the equal access regulations, it would be a lot easier for smaller providers to compete. (And it would be even easier if state and local governments didn't give sweetheart deals to large providers.)
I think even without the government regulations you'd have a similar situation: it's expensive enough to serve even an affluent area that the market can't really support much more than 2 companies (which already exist in the form of Comcast/TimeWarner and FiOS/U-Verse in most wealthy areas). You'd probably also find that some middle-class suburbs would have no providers available at all.
Though I do agree that subscriber pricing is much better in areas where you see both a cable company and a telco video provider like FiOS or U-Verse.
> it's expensive enough to serve even an affluent area that the market can't really support much more than 2 companies
I would state this with a key qualifier: it's expensive to serve even an affluent area the way our society currently works. The way our society currently works is that local municipalities are strongly discouraged from doing local development sanely--where "sanely" means that when a new subdivision goes in, say, all the easements for running wired high-speed Internet go in as well.
The best way of doing this would be for the local developer to simply run the cables, and have them owned in common by the municipality, homeowner's association, or whatever entity owns the common areas in the development. That entity then leases access to the cables to all Internet providers on an equal basis.
The next-best way would be for the local developer to put in all the cable trenches, space for connection hubs, etc. in while the development is being constructed, right along with the water lines, gas lines, storm sewers, and other utilities, and with all the permits, easements, etc. already in place. Then an Internet provider just has to do a cable pull, which is only a small fraction of the cost of installing high-speed Internet in our actual society.
When municipalities actually try to do either of the above, however, they find themselves embroiled in lawsuits and negative publicity from the large Internet providers, who can't stand the idea that nobody really wants to buy their overpriced services, and if a way of routing around them became common, their business would be kaput.
I'm in favor of the FCC's equal-access laws. Otherwise people in places with poor infrastructure will have to pay even more to get service, which seems counter-productive for society.
That's fine, but you can not be in favor of these laws and then condemn their direct consequences with righteous indignation. If you've got the one, you've got the other. If you have onerous regulation in some market, you'll be limited to a few large players that can master that regulation.
