@Scoured Frisbee
"complain to your city representation"
Who will definitely ignore him, since he stated he's in a *rural* area. Sheesh.
Even if they listened, no company will promise to "cover his area" unless they're required to by law, or heavily subsidised (as is the case now for landline telephone carriers with the universal service fund).
"Of course if the market was unregulated other companies would be allowed to compete in the high profit areas."
Except that they wouldn't. They wouldn't compete in the high profit areas because they'd have to spend the (large amounts of) money to build out a network, *and* try to beat the incumbents on price and service. That's a high barrier to entry, and hurts the bottom line too much. Better to stick it to the customers you already have captive, and without regulation they'd be able to charge whatever they please.
They wouldn't bother with rural areas (poor return on investment), so nothing would change. Maybe the incumbent operators in such areas would even pull out, because operating there isn't profitable without subsidy, and without regulation they have no reason to operate anywhere that they don't profit from.
Less regulation isn't the answer here, we need better-thought-out regulation which allows for real competition, doesn't get in the way *too* much, yet prevents obvious abuses. Something like local loop unbundling perhaps?
It *is* madness that in a supposed free-market economy, such a major part of the communications infrastructure is operated almost entirely by local monopolies. As long as that remains the case we'll never see progress.