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Comment by newton10471 | Hacker News Reader

Do you live in NYC? I do, and I don't have at all what I'd call "a number of good options" for internet access. In my area, there's two companies who operate similar to a monopoly (Verizon and Optimum), and regularly raise prices arbitrarily and often for no reason.

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Having two choices actually might put you well above average for the US. Back when I was in Mountain View, CA (a few miles from Google HQ) it was either Comcast or nothing and the irony was not lost on me.

AT&T had an offering when I lived in Mountain View that was so comically terrible as to not realistically be an option at all.

This is still true as of last year. Comcast was the only viable option.

You get two? My block on 78th and 1st has Twc, I mean Spectrum, and I don't know what I'm going to do when they get kicked out of the state.

Ah, I meant 'good' relative to options in the developing world. Getting +20Mb/s for under 0.1-5% of your annual income puts you way ahead of most people on Earth.

But yes, I'm sure there's cities out there with more options than NYC.

Yeah... every apartment of mine has had exactly one option, TWC=>Spectrum (in Manhattan) or Optimum (in Brooklyn).

I've lived in 4 apartments in 7 years and never once had a choice.

A lot of this may have to do with the building & management -- often times, the building's condo/coop board strikes an exclusivity deal with the ISPs and get a share of the revenue.

[I'm on a condo board]

I live in the West Village and have ONE choice... Spectrum :(

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