Right now in Canada I am paying high rates for antiquated service. There is still long distance, I have to pay extra for voicemail + caller id, etc.

I agree that government sponsored monopolies probably could not keep up with the pace of innovation. However in industries where natural monopolies occur, I think they are the better solution then private enterprise.

In Canada, it used to be that receiving text messages was free. However, one of the three carriers decided to charge for incoming texts. Sure enough, in less than a year, the other two carriers followed and also charged for incoming texts. I have a strong feeling to say that sort of behavior would not occur if there was a government sponsored monopoly.

The obvious solution is better regulation, but I don't think anyone has found a solution to regulatory capture yet so I'm not banking on anything there.