The RBOCs didn't "promise". They actually promised to lay fiber to a particular percentage of homes, then they actually received the benefits of deregulation and rate hikes premised on that promise, and then they actually did not lay that fiber. Prior to the deal, RBOCs were regulated like the utilities they were, so profit margins were absolutely appropriate for regulators to target. After the deal, they reconglomerated into the two-headed unregulatable vertically-integrated Ma Bell redux we suffer today, spinning off huge fees for execs and M&A specialists while UNE-Ping actually-innovative CLECs and ISPs to death. If you don't like the (really conservative) $206B figure, then propose another, but don't pretend it's zero.
Spending money on wireless rather than fiber made more sense because that segment has even less competition and consumer power than broadband. They're making money hand over fist there; spare us the crocodile tears over the capital investments.
Your premise is that telecom companies are utilities and should be regulated as such. I think that premise is deeply flawed. Utility models are appropriate for things where demand and technology changes slowly, like power and water. But telecoms is totally different in that regard. Public utilities are almost universally underfunded. Unless public money is invested, utilities have very little incentive to do more than keep the existing infrastructure from decaying too badly. See: your water and power.
Also, on what planet is wireless less competitive than broadband? Most subscribers have 3-4 credible wireless choices. The reason companies are spending money on wireless is that: 1) its less of a regulatory morass than wireline; and 2) there is insanely high consumer demand.
Haha, I guess I can see why you'd think that's "my premise". Actually I feel we'd be better off if the FCC and all its regulations were eliminated tomorrow. (We'd learn the real meaning of "wireless innovation", at least.) A regulated provider that gets the chance to rewrite all its regulations "mid-stream" benefits from an enormous windfall, and the public is not well-served when its representatives give away such a windfall for free. (Well of course there was expensive lobbying and other corruption, but the public didn't benefit much from that either.) This unearned windfall is the "ripoff" that we're complaining about.
The point is not that every home in the nation should be connected by fiber: that would be unnecessary if the FCC ever got off its ass on unlicensed wireless but more to the point was never feasible even while the RBOC lobbyists were promising it. Promising what they could not deliver is really not different than failing to deliver what they promised.
It's funny, but a fiber in the ground is actually an example of a network component that wouldn't require much effort from a regulated provider to remain useful. If a regulator prevented vertical integration, other operators could compete to "light" the fiber, and that would be enough to accommodate innovation. In fact that's what happens in other nations.
There are two actually-independent wireless network operators in the USA. Sprint and T-Mobile both have to rely too much on the big two for backhaul to really threaten them commercially. While it is true that much spending is in response to demand, that demand would be quite different in a market where the FCC allowed actually-innovative services. Also the RBOCs and their two mutant descendants don't get to complain about the regulations they themselves wrote.
Spending money on wireless rather than fiber made more sense because that segment has even less competition and consumer power than broadband. They're making money hand over fist there; spare us the crocodile tears over the capital investments.