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>Or you know - have the government own the poles and sell access to anyone who wants to run lines.

That's the status quo with the government owning the land upon which poles may be erected instead of poles.

So I don't see how moving the government ownership up a step would solve anything.

Because you can't have multiple poles on the same land. One pole owned by the government that all businesses can use.

That can work but you have to do a much better job of outlawing all forms of government-protected monopolization and its half-way equivalents. Otherwise what you end up with, are local governments that want to cut deals for extra cash with AT&T et al. Local governments are supposed to not be allowed to cut monopoly deals today, but they still conspire with big telco to rig the game any way they can.

For example?

You can though. The second poles group might need to be taller and more expensive, but there is no reason to be a monopoly.

Multiple, taller telephone poles. Yet another stellar solution from the "free market".

Not entirely unlike the GSM/CDMA redundancy.

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