What I'd like to see is the 'utility' part being a connection between my house and a POP/CO, specified as being capable of 1 or 10Gbps (symmetric). The municipality is responsible for ensuring this exists in the same way they do for hydro, water, sewer and gas.
I can then choose my actual provider who will hook up at the CO (either virtually or physically), and connect me to the internet (or their service) at whatever speed we agree on. The utility part is nothing more than a long cable between me and the provider.
The provider could give me nothing more than a public IP and route to the internet, or they could give something 'value-added' like an e-mail account and content filtering. It could even be a closed non-internet service like Facebook Free Basics[0] or maybe Verizon wants to dust off the old AOL service. The thing is, as a consumer I get the choice.
I can then choose my actual provider who will hook up at the CO (either virtually or physically), and connect me to the internet (or their service) at whatever speed we agree on. The utility part is nothing more than a long cable between me and the provider.
The provider could give me nothing more than a public IP and route to the internet, or they could give something 'value-added' like an e-mail account and content filtering. It could even be a closed non-internet service like Facebook Free Basics[0] or maybe Verizon wants to dust off the old AOL service. The thing is, as a consumer I get the choice.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org