What's the best way to get rid of the telco / cableco monopolies?

BUILD AROUND THEM.

See http://communityfiber.org for the description of a Communty-owned-and-operated Fiber To The Home network. The advantages are numerous and staggering:

START with ONE GIGABIT SPEED! The telcos will get there in maybe 20 years, while we see that some Japanese ALREADY HAVE ACCESS TO THAT SPEED. We can have 1gbps IMMEDIATELY, instead of waiting for the infinite "let's suck the last tier dry before we move to the next" strategy of the telcos.

Community Fiber Charter PREVENTS third parties from screwing with the network (PRESERVES NET NEUTRALITY) and makes the playing field level for all vendors, large and small.

Pricing for such a network targets low costs to the users: the network is operated as a Utility and end-users are expected to pay between $10 and $30 per month base fee. The differential cost for one additional user allows the municipality to hand out a certain number of subsidized lines to serve the underserved, without that being a particular burden to the other subscribers.

Make USAGE of the network free since the network infrastructure is Already Paid For by base fee; so intra-network traffic appears FREE; as cities wire themselves up, they will also interconnect, and "Free end-to-end service" becomes a reality.

We will put the telcos and cablecos out of business by ignoring them. Would you rather get 1,000 megabit-per-second service over Fiber for $25/month, or 8 megabit-per-second service over DSL for $90/month? Would you like to save UP TO $1000 PER YEAR on Telecom fees? Then WIRE UP YOUR OWN COMMUNITY WITH FIBER NOW. This has begun to happen in the US, let us FINISH THE JOB.

If we can't reform the FCC, we can reform the telcos by PUTTING THEM OUT OF BUSINESS - and that's just a Side benefit of wiring yourself with fiber.

See http://communitfiber.org.