But nobody is really stepping forward to lay residential fiber. Google is the exception and it's because they're one of the only companies with enough money to survive a war of attrition with the incumbents, and even then it's only in a handful of places.

It's prohibitively expensive to have twelve companies each run a different strand of fiber to every house. And you only need one. The key is to a) get one instead of zero and then b) put competition on the other end of the fiber. Have one company (or municipality) be the regulated monopoly that provides only the physical layer, and then let all willing providers compete to terminate the fiber and provide internet/TV/phone service.

Separating the natural monopoly (the physical layer) from over the top services is the key to preventing monopoly abuse. The entity that does that should do only that.