Telecoms are also given a lot of government protection, like local monopolies and no liability for the information they deliver, in return for the regulation. The government paid for a lot of the wires and switches with subsidies, which muddles the property rights argument. The government certainly has a right, as well as an obligation to the public, to ensure that its expenditures are to the public benefit.
I personally take the view that, for all intents and purposes, telcoms aren't completely private entities due to the legal and financial privelages they recieve from the government, so reasoning by analogy to other private enterprises is flawed. The crossover is enough to give them a civic obligation in addition to their fudiciary responsibility, enforcable by regulation.