Most places in the US have at least two wired options, and two or more wireless options. And, if Comcast charges too much, and cities allow it (as with Google Fiber), other options will arrive.
And these are still better options than my family in the Midwest and New York have available to them. You just can't claim with a straight face that there's competition in this market.
I have 5Mbps DSL in San Francisco. It's plenty for HD Netflix and Hulu, VOIP, and video-calling.
I suspect you also have 3+ wireless options, some of which likely offer 20Mbps+ in bursts. Yes, it costs more. Yes, you'd like to pay less. Everyone would! But your desire for more modern luxury goods (massive HD bandwidth), cheaper, is not a public policy crisis.
Someone has to invest more to give you more, and market-floating prices for the existing paths are exactly what draws in more investment – or sends you a signal that you should 'self-help' to the nearest source of plentiful bandwidth.
Minneapolis is a beacon of hope, here. $40 for 100 Mbps / 100 Mbps in much of the city, from a local fiber provider.
That's what kills me. Comcast's audacity is just so much more galling when you've actually experienced what happens with competition. And not that competition is a panacea, necessarily. I don't have a say in my water, gas, or electricity providers, but in exchange for that monopoly, they're subject to pretty serious regulation.
That's much better than nationally locking-in a pipes-and-sewers-like regulatory structure that freezes incumbents into a safe but slow-moving regulated approach, for decades.
The decades of Title-II-regulated AT&T telecom monopoly were not good for consumers or innovation. They were safe and slow.
I understand he is an exception, but it is not nearly as uncommon as you are implying.
http://www.broadbandmap.gov/blog/
So yes, your father's property is an unfortunate outlier. His main beef should be with the local authorities who granted Comcast a monopoly without a prompt requirement-to-service.
(And in places where Comcast is truly the only provider, local regulation until other options arrive makes sense. Just not nationally, when almost everywhere has 2+ wired options and 3+ wireless options, and could also incrementally add new wires and towers far more easily than outlying/non-urban places.)