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Comment by johndunne | Hacker News Reader

Not a US person here, but I'd be interested in knowing if there are any 'customer-friendly' alternatives available. For example, I'm in the UK and specifically chose Zen internet as my broadband provider for its more customer-centric terms over the many other broadband providers available to the UK market.

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There are smaller ISPs around the US that may or may not be more consumer-friendly, but they tend to be very limited in terms of their regions and availability. Even in urban areas, the choice tends to be between the standard duopoly of either DSL or cable, and the dominant providers tend to aggressively undercut on price or lobby & litigate until the competitors go out of business.

Any "customer friendly" business in the US is just in the pre-"milk it for all it's worth" phase. They haven't been bought by private equity yet, they're unencumbered by finicky and short sighted investors, and people at the company are largely still a name & a face, rather than an expense line item on some spreadsheet.

I spent a good deal of effort 6 years ago to find an alternative in Denver, CO, that wasn't Comcast or CenturyLink. There are a number of business ISPs, but only a one or two residential ISPs. Verso Networks is what I got. Excellent service, but they were geographically limited.

In the suburbs of Denver, you have a choice of Comcast or CenturyLink if you're lucky.

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