I find it a quite amazing situation. It's a good demonstration that US politicians are not interested in free market competition. In Europe, this structural split was a key part of the de-regulation of the telecoms market.
In the UK alone, OpenReach, the BT subsidiary that inherited the last mile network, counts more than 500 companies as customers that provide telecoms and ISP services to end-users. Many of them are business focused or offer only specific subsets of services, but there are a huge number of nationwide ISPs using OpenReach's services.
Especially because the starting point is very simple: You can start out using their "backhaul" service which lets you integrate with OpenReach a couple of places and be able to offer broadband nationwide in the UK and have OpenReach provide you with IP connections to each customer for you to do whatever you want with. You can then if you want "graduate" to local loop unbundling where you put equipment in local exchanges as/when demand justifies it, allowing you to connect directly to the local loop (line) of each of your subscribers, which allows you to offer services in excess of what OpenReach does (e.g. some ISPs offer higher speeds).
Once you go the LLU route, you can turn around and offer backhaul services yourself if you wish, in competition with OpenReach.
If even that isn't enough, and you have the capital, you can look at laying your own lines. E.g. in some cities we're starting to see alternative fibre connections to many apartment buildings etc. as providers are capitalising on the density to bypass OpenReach.
So it encourages competition massively by creating a very low barrier to entry, while allowing larger providers to compete with OpenReach itself.
Looking at some of the other complaints re: OpenReach, the best setup might be municipal ownership/oversight of the last-mile, but with operations contracted out to private companies. That way you can split the network ops among vendors, or periodically reassess effectiveness of the private companies.
In the UK alone, OpenReach, the BT subsidiary that inherited the last mile network, counts more than 500 companies as customers that provide telecoms and ISP services to end-users. Many of them are business focused or offer only specific subsets of services, but there are a huge number of nationwide ISPs using OpenReach's services.
Especially because the starting point is very simple: You can start out using their "backhaul" service which lets you integrate with OpenReach a couple of places and be able to offer broadband nationwide in the UK and have OpenReach provide you with IP connections to each customer for you to do whatever you want with. You can then if you want "graduate" to local loop unbundling where you put equipment in local exchanges as/when demand justifies it, allowing you to connect directly to the local loop (line) of each of your subscribers, which allows you to offer services in excess of what OpenReach does (e.g. some ISPs offer higher speeds).
Once you go the LLU route, you can turn around and offer backhaul services yourself if you wish, in competition with OpenReach.
If even that isn't enough, and you have the capital, you can look at laying your own lines. E.g. in some cities we're starting to see alternative fibre connections to many apartment buildings etc. as providers are capitalising on the density to bypass OpenReach.
So it encourages competition massively by creating a very low barrier to entry, while allowing larger providers to compete with OpenReach itself.