Nationwide Wi-Fi?

We have a national electric grid. Most locales also have water and sewer through community resources. Lafayette, Louisiana has now prevailed in its court case against the local telephone and cable companies to provide fiber to the home as a utility. See the Bill Moyers special "The Net at Risk" for background on that and other projects. Lafayette is not stopping at fiber. They will also be running wi-fi to the town. Should we have Internet accessible to the masses nationwide, or is that solely the domain of private enterprise? Such is the question before the court of public opinion. Some of the big telcos want to license spectrum which might otherwise be used for this nationwide network. Of course, there's a petition.