For the Bay Area, here's an ISP that knows what its job is (and what it isn't):
How many ISPs can (or would) post a news item on their home page re: EFF...
“Sonic.net privacy policies recognized by the EFF The Electronic Frontier Foundation assessed the policies of 18 leading Internet companies, and Sonic.net has come out with top marks. The EFF wrote in their report that...”
FWIW: No ties to sonic.net
I loved them when I used them in SF.
For years, I've paid Speakeasy and Sonic more than I could have paid to a phone or cable incumbent. And I've been happy to do it, because when something goes wrong I get to talk to actual smart people who want to fix things.
I'm also sad that our competition regulators allowed this to happen. A pseudo-choice between two basically equivalent options isn't enough for the magic of the free market to work.
It's not just that - we subsidized the construction of the Internet channels with our tax dollars, and then the government essentially handed over the control of those to the private companies, who now claim that they can charge whatever they want for access to "their" lines.
Consumers may have played a role, but at the end of the day, it's the government (the constituents)[1] who have sanctioned the existing monopolies.
> I'm also sad that our competition regulators allowed this to happen. A pseudo-choice between two basically equivalent options isn't enough for the magic of the free market to work.
Choice? 80% of consumers have zero choice in their ISP. For me, the only alternative is 'no Internet'.
[1] Obviously consumers == constituents for the most part, but I make the distinction to draw attention to the fact that they would need to act in their role as voters/citizens, not as consumers, if they want to change anything.
Sadly, my house is 12K feet past a remote terminal, so it is unlikely I'll be able to get anything other than UVerse or Comcast for a long time.