The net inherited neutrality from well established international treaties governing the global telephone system, not sure how the FCC can dump it without breaking those treaties and pissing off every other nation on earth? Regardless of who owns the wires, the telephone system is global public infrastructure (much of it was originally funded and built by various governments). If they want to stay hooked up to that global infrastructure then they should follow the established rules and stop pleading for special treatment for their lackluster regional networks.
The place to lobby for a change to the rules is somewhere like the WTO, or whatever organisation monitors the existing treaties, not a parochial bureaucracy such as the FCC. Problem for the US phone companies is that they cannot bully or bribe the WTO into doing their bidding for them.