So I can't obviously "prove" any causality, that would require serious studies; but I can testify how things work here in France.
1) doesn't change anything. Mostly due to ISP practices, which are regulated under typical communication laws (this dates back to radio, landlines, post offices, etc)
2) bandwidth is generally great. The idea is this: you mutualize the pipes (shared by citizens through public organisms, and some private infrastructure / maintenance companies). Then all ISP invest together to build the best shared infrastructure; at which point any customer can just switch to any ISP at any time — you just unplug-replug in the locally shared DSLAM/PON/whatever.
FWIW we've got the same infra for elec, water, kitchen gas, even banking... you just hook up with another utility provider and they switch you within days, weeks at most (it's a manual intervention in many cases). Don't like your elec provider? Next month, you're out.
The net result is that we've got up to 1Gbps symmetrical for €40/mo (say $45), basic offers for e.g 250Mb at €10-20/mo maybe. There's even a 10Gbps network being deployed (at the routing level, it's mostly equipment) by one ISP, I got it and measured ~3.5Gbps max concurently (I'd rather have 1Gbps symmetrical since I've got servers though, self-hosting is a very real possibility with such bandwidth; all IPs are full stack on demand here (all ports, no sub-1024 shenanigans) unless you're on budget offers.
3) that's freedom of speech most likely (e.g porn is legal... nobody questions that). Also ties to GDPR now, on the source side. We've had such laws in France for two decades now, look up the CNIL. Nothing to report here, ISPs would be fined if not respecting a modicus of neutrality — but there's no data cap on home connections whatsoever, so it's not comparable to the US situation. In the past (DSL era) we observed some early / prime time throttling of selected websites (e.g YouTube) by a certain ISP who was "at war" with Google (so, that was a choice, not a factor of infrastructure).
4) See 2. It's all private but there's gov oversight and regulation to maintain access. For instance, you can't cut internet to poor people, unemployed etc. here: we've determined it's too important to have internet access to find a job and do basic admin stuff (pretty much all state services are now online). That's the real value of internet as a commodity: it's a matter of "can you leave a household without electricity? without water? without internet?", the answer being a resounding "no" because that's inhumane, that's attacking their dignity and our decency. The question thus becomes, how much of it do we 'guarantee' to everyone, like basic healthcare. The answer here in France is: enough to live decently, enough to keep functioning as a normal member of society, notably to get a job (or keep it) and have a social life (we've found that depression doesn't help anyone).
Honestly, none of it is perfect, but as far as internet goes, yeah we've nailed it. I don't know of any better offer for the price (many Asian countries have a better infra, but costs are 2-3x for customers).
1) doesn't change anything. Mostly due to ISP practices, which are regulated under typical communication laws (this dates back to radio, landlines, post offices, etc)
2) bandwidth is generally great. The idea is this: you mutualize the pipes (shared by citizens through public organisms, and some private infrastructure / maintenance companies). Then all ISP invest together to build the best shared infrastructure; at which point any customer can just switch to any ISP at any time — you just unplug-replug in the locally shared DSLAM/PON/whatever.
FWIW we've got the same infra for elec, water, kitchen gas, even banking... you just hook up with another utility provider and they switch you within days, weeks at most (it's a manual intervention in many cases). Don't like your elec provider? Next month, you're out.
The net result is that we've got up to 1Gbps symmetrical for €40/mo (say $45), basic offers for e.g 250Mb at €10-20/mo maybe. There's even a 10Gbps network being deployed (at the routing level, it's mostly equipment) by one ISP, I got it and measured ~3.5Gbps max concurently (I'd rather have 1Gbps symmetrical since I've got servers though, self-hosting is a very real possibility with such bandwidth; all IPs are full stack on demand here (all ports, no sub-1024 shenanigans) unless you're on budget offers.
3) that's freedom of speech most likely (e.g porn is legal... nobody questions that). Also ties to GDPR now, on the source side. We've had such laws in France for two decades now, look up the CNIL. Nothing to report here, ISPs would be fined if not respecting a modicus of neutrality — but there's no data cap on home connections whatsoever, so it's not comparable to the US situation. In the past (DSL era) we observed some early / prime time throttling of selected websites (e.g YouTube) by a certain ISP who was "at war" with Google (so, that was a choice, not a factor of infrastructure).
4) See 2. It's all private but there's gov oversight and regulation to maintain access. For instance, you can't cut internet to poor people, unemployed etc. here: we've determined it's too important to have internet access to find a job and do basic admin stuff (pretty much all state services are now online). That's the real value of internet as a commodity: it's a matter of "can you leave a household without electricity? without water? without internet?", the answer being a resounding "no" because that's inhumane, that's attacking their dignity and our decency. The question thus becomes, how much of it do we 'guarantee' to everyone, like basic healthcare. The answer here in France is: enough to live decently, enough to keep functioning as a normal member of society, notably to get a job (or keep it) and have a social life (we've found that depression doesn't help anyone).
Honestly, none of it is perfect, but as far as internet goes, yeah we've nailed it. I don't know of any better offer for the price (many Asian countries have a better infra, but costs are 2-3x for customers).