Net Neutrality and the Comcast-Timewarner merger

Net neutrality is one of the most important topics that everyone has been talking about lately. It is the idea that ISPs should treat all data equally. Meaning that all content should go through ISPs at the same speed. No content should be favored over other content.

So now ISPs have decided that they're not making enough money and want more control over the internet. So they've decided to start a campaign against net neutrality and they have started charging companies like netflix (who already pay for internet service and the ability to stream their content to you) to send their data to their end users.

My question isn't why they are doing this because that is already obvious to me. My question is this. Why do we allow these private corporations to control our access to the internet? Why is the internet not a public utility like water and electricity? The purpose of a corporation is to make money. That's it. I don't think a corporation should be allowed to just squat on the internet and just keep making money until the end of time. Especially when the ISPs aren't innovating at all and are actually just making the internet worse.
I fully support net neutrality. I think the best way we can implement it is to take back control of the internet from ISPs and make our networks publicly owned.

Since 1991 Verizon has been paid $15 billion to improve their broadband network. What did they do with it? They gave it to their shareholders and the used it to improve the infrastructure for their wireless network. Hmm. I wonder why they would improve their wireless network but not their broadband one? Perhaps it is because unlike in the world of broadband, in the world of wireless Verizon actually has competition. That is the main problem with ISPs. They usually have little to no competition in the areas that they serve. Why expand into another area where another ISP is at when you can just raise rates in your area?

And now here's the funniest part. Comcast wants to merge with Timewarner. Yes, that's right, what little competition that existed between these two companies will be reduced to nothing. So now we will have the two worst companies merging together to become a mega ISP. What does that mean for the end user? Higher prices, no improvement in service, more fees, and now they will have more money to lobby the government against net neutrality so then they can make even more money.

So here is what I would do. Note this will never happen because big corporations and our government are in bed with each other. First I would get rid of any ISP that took public money to improve their network and pocketed it. I would throw all of their executives and past executives in jail for stealing. Then I would seize their entire network and convert it into a public utility. Over time I would buy up the smaller ISPs networks' and conver those into public utilities. Then eventually the entire internet would be a public utility and we would never have to deal with this again.