My favorite example of this is telecoms in Canada. Both public competition and dysfunctional markets.
Saskatchewan has SaskTel. It’s a public telecom that provides internet (DSL, fiber, wireless)/POTS/cellular. They and their subsidiaries (e.g., SaskTel International) provide all sorts of other services.
When the CRTC removed rules about charging for data overages and things, they didn’t implement any additional charges because their mandate is to serve the people of the province not extract the most profit for shareholders.
They contribute money back into the government coffers every year while also being the sole telecom covering large swathes of the province, working through a FTTH rollout, etc.
When I went to sign up for a cellular plan with a different provider, the person on the phone kept telling me the plan didn’t exist—they had the same plan, but it was $30/mo more than what I was telling them.
Because they had the wrong province selected. All of that provider’s plans were 30-50% cheaper in my province due to the competition from the (profitable) public telecom.
I’ve been away a while, it’s probably gone to shit by now (when I left the government was trying to sell it off for a quick buck _again_), but at the time it was magical to live in the only place in the entire country with an even relatively sane cellular market.
