Well, in the US little is government owned, if any of it, not sure how much of ARPANET carries data nowadays.
According to wikipedia, current Tier 1 carriers are:
Level 3 Communications, TeliaSonera International Carrier, CenturyLink, Vodafone, Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T Corporation
They are not subsidized here, maybe where you are at, and I don't ever recall the government spending in internet infrastructure using taxpayer's money (unless it's the NSA I guess but that's a total different story).