alt Hacker News> short of a government regulation or a monopoly,
Phone companies used to be monopolies, in Europe they were owned by the government as a public service. But when they become profitable politicians betrayed their citizens and sold them. Nowadays, phone companies are a source of scams, spam and everything wrong with big corporations. And all that profits are now private instead of helping to fund the country.
On this topic, phone lines are so ubiquitous that it is irresponsible for representative governments to continue to let private companies mess around with them. Doubly irresponsible to go from public to private after the increase in popularity.