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Comment by loeg | Hacker News Reader

I live in WA and am amused. I didn't hear anything about this until now.

This isn't quite the same issue as NN, but in Seattle we had a single ISP monopoly (Comcast) until quite recently. Centurylink has started offering fiber in the last few years, but before that there was an uninterrupted decade where Comcast was the only viable broadband option for most homes.

(A number of vendors offered DSL, but it was extremely slow and typically not price-competitive; a small number of vendors offered very fast internet, but only in condos / apartment buildings in or near the downtown core.)

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That's pretty much like most of the US, minus the "fiber in recent years" part.

Yeah, and the caveat is still "fiber in certain areas," although that area is expanding and much larger than the previous near-downtown services. For example, I live about 7 miles from the downtown core and have "gigabit" service available over fiber. (Centurylink uses a bunch of splitters for downstream traffic, which is multiplexed, so you're effectively limited to about 600 mbps down.)

Bellingham had a local provider (PogoZone) pop up and they seem to be becoming more and more competitive with Comcast around here. Unfortunately, they service from a cell tower from which my house is obscured by a large hill. I have heard great things about them, though.

Comcast recently upped my bill after 12 months (which they said they wouldn't do). I wanted to downgrade to just internet (currently internet/basic cable), and they allegedly can only offer me 1 package for $110/mo and 400Mbps. I don't need that. So of course I will probably get roped in to paying for another internet/cable package, or internet/cable/phone, just to save a bit of value.

I've had similar issues in Ontario (packaged internet + tv being cheaper than just internet) - Is there a reason why this is so?

The package deals are for multiple years. The package is only cheaper for the first year.

I've always suspected that they use those numbers to inflate how many people are actually signing up for TV. From there you can potentially get better deals, inflate your monthly reports, etc etc.

We have the same issue on the other side of the state in Spokane. In the majority of the metropolitan area, Comcast is your only viable option. Where I live, I can get up to around 250 Mbit Comcast or 1-5 Mbit CenturyLink.

In the north-central part of town (Garland 'hood) I'm getting 40Mb service from CenturyLink and it's generally pretty reliable though throughput really drops during the mid- and late afternoon. I didn't know that Comcast offered such high data rates here though so thanks for the tip.

There's also Wave, but they're not available in all parts of the city, so certain people like myself are basically forced to give Comcast money. I'd be thrilled if we had more options.

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