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Cities grant franchise rights and determine rates charged for access to city poles and cable vaults.

Incumbent ISPs lobby local govermment and sue would-be competitors to ensure the competition are only offered access on less favourable terms.

Let's not sugar coat the language by referring to them as franchise rights, they're state-sanctioned monopolies.

Well, sure if they decide to only grant a single franchise which is what happens in a lot of cases. There is no reason they can't allow several competing operators in a given city though.

Back in my day, we rented Ricochet modems and shared the bandwidth between 4 users.

It's spotty. I know in DC they have RCN in some areas, which is a high-quality option.

In NYC, in one apartment I had 3 or 4 differennt ISPs to choose from, RCN included. In my current place, I only have one.