Did I even mention “free market”? Did I say government should not get involved at all? Where is this negativity coming from?
That's how we got into the situation we're in now with respect to net neutrality. Sure there are fixes that involve regulating the private infrastructure, but what's so great about that vs. just making the infrastructure public in the first place?
You can always contract out the building and management of the infrastructure while still maintaining public ownership and control.