Still, at least with my phone I have my choice of carriers and will be switching from AT&T to Verizon this month. I don't have that same choice in choosing a "high speed" ISP... I wish some comcast competition would move into town, the consumer might end up with a better quality product.
This is a dangerous fallacy exploited by entities like giant ISPs and the MPAA to push debate toward their desired outcomes. If everyone believes that "the truth lies somewhere between," then all an extreme actor needs to do is argue for extreme position A against the status quo B, and public opinion (and political discourse) automatically shifts to (A+B)/2 every time the extreme actor raises the issue. In reality, the truth may be exactly B, but because of a well-intentioned but fallacious desire to compromise, opinion and policy are skewed away from the truth.
The classic example of this fallacy is this: "Some say the sun rises in the east. Some say it rises in the west. The truth must lie somewhere between."
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Argument_to_m...
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Overton_Windo...
Even for ISPs running their own network, such as BT, [ISP CTO] Davies claims the figures of €0.01-0.03 per GB are "rubbish". "It's an order of magnitude greater than that," he claimed.
This is coming from a guy claiming that the "existing smartphone data tariffs of around €10 per GB" are too low. They're profit-seeking, and relying on their regulators to be as bad at math as they are.