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Comment by the-dude | Hacker News Reader

What is the actual harm? I can choose between copper, coax and fiber and there are at least multiple providers on the copper.

Prices are reasonable and speeds are good.

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Many places in the United States don't have the luxury. I'm in a county of half a million people and there are are basically two options: Comcast cable (which is decently fast for downloads) and a variety of resellers who all run on Verizon's DSL network.

No fiber options unless I want to give Comcast the blood of my firstborn and then pay $300 a month for the privilege. Verizon has been promising fiber "any day now" for the past 10 years.

My street also only got fiber this year.

What is the actual harm / collusion? You can choose from a wide variety of ISPs, which are decent to your own admission, but the harm is it is not fiber ?

Cry me a river.

The past two years should've made it clear that public education and the workforce increasingly depend on having access to bandwidth. Of course this was already a trend, but the pandemic accelerated it, affecting entire household bandwidth consumption at once. I disagree with the implication that wanting (needing?) fiber is somehow equivalent to whining.

I can effectively choose between two: Comcast and Verizon/their resellers. I said Comcast _downstream_ speeds are decent. Their _upstream_ speeds are atrocious.

Comcast only provides coax. Verizon and their resellers only support aging copper DSL lines.

No fiber is available unless I pay Comcast literally thousands of dollars just to bring the line to my house. Then they want to charge me $300 a month on top of that.

I did not suggest there was harm or collusion between Comcast and Verizon. I only pointed out that your experience of having a plethora of acceptable ISPs is unusual in most of the United States.

Most places in the US only have a single ISP option. There's a word that describes this situation that rhymes with "phonopoly."

wide variety of ISPs that give you "SuperFast 15mbit* ADSL"

*speed not guaranteed.

How much is that a month? I am getting 50 down, 25 up for IIRC € 30.

where i live, around $50-$60. and so we will be clear, it's maximum speed :)

Maximum speed in the EU is much more expensive.

let me rephrase it. it's the only speed.

If it is the only speed, technically it is neither fast nor slow, is it?

In the 80s we had 2400 bauds only and we liked it.

> I can choose between copper, coax and fiber and there are at least multiple providers on the copper.

Your experience is unusual; I don't think I've ever lived anywhere with more than 2 options, and surprising chunks of the USA have fewer.

Yeah, in most of the places I've lived, I've only had one choice, and it's been quite expensive for the quality.

In most places in the US you have one or two choices of providers, and prices are often pretty high for good internet service - as much as double what it could be in a more competitive market, with speeds that don't match. Even in major cities, upload speeds with any major provider suck... I got the gigabit from Comcast just because I wanted the 35mbps up, whereas the next plan down (600mbps download) was going to only give 15mbps up. And despite being in San Francisco, our only real choices in our building are Comcast and At&t.

If you can get AT&T it means you can get Sonic as well. AT&T still handles the last mile, but it's Sonic on the other end.

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