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Americans Hate ISPs Almost As Much As They Hate Gas Stations, Survey Finds
(www.extremetech.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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National ISPs like Spectrum/Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and Comcast/Xfinity have an oligopoly. They have divided up America into their own markets and purposely avoid entering each other's markets to avoid competing with each other. With no competition, they are free to charge as much as possible, avoid providing good support, and can provide suboptimal service (ie, low and asymmetric download/upload speeds, terrible latency). [1] The problem worsens if you live in suburban or rural areas. Of course there are exceptions where coverage overlaps due to sharing infra, but that is rare and possibly priced in.
[1] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/2/18/21126347/antitrust-monopolies-internet-telecommunications-cheerleading
Those same ISPs compleatly ignored rural areas. 10 years ago I could only get internet through Dish network ( the worst ISP) today thanks to the government helping small ISPs I can choose from 2 companies offering high speed fiber.
Right now I'm on 200 up/down for $70.
I have the small town ISP also, it's great. I get 100Mb symmetrical fiber for $50/mo with no contract and no data caps. Very reliable, almost never goes down.
It's worse than collusion. The break up of AT&T resulted in a legal construction of Franchise Agreements that legally granted regional monopolies in all major population centers in the country in a deliberate bid to avoid Sherman antitrust rules. It's not merely collusion, you literally cannot compete by law.