It is the government's job to ensure that the rights of each citizen are upheld through the creation of appropriate laws and the agencies to enforce them. When communications technology (broadband Internet and telephones specifically) is a basic right, the government's job is to create and maintain an agency and infrastructure to uphold that right. That means a state-owned telecommunications company that is motivated not by the bottom line but by service of the citizens. If Ma and Pa Farmer in the remote outback want broadband Internet, then, they can get it at an affordable price or even (dare I say) free because of their tax money.
Now obviously electronic communications is a less urgent right than food, shelter and the right to live, but how do people hear about your problems if you're invisible and silent, cut off from the world? If you're stuck in an alley in a rich city and people who could help you walk past every day, oblivious, what's would be the first step? Either call out so they hear you or get out where they can see you. If everyone physically around you is in the same crummy situation, you need a wider audience. That's what the Internet is for.
Mokalus of Borg
PS - We used to have a state-owned telco in Australia.
PPS - We let the government sell it.
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