If only more had that option.
The internet has become a public utility just like electricity, water, or the roads. Businesses and private citizens depend on it day to day, and economic growth is hampered by poor performance in this area (e.g. new types of businesses that depend on bandwidth, like a Netflix competitor, cannot exist if the pipes are slow).
In my view the raw cable and fibre should be confiscated from the big three by the government using eminent domain, and then rented out to competing ISPs (including the big three) on even footing. The rent would pay to maintain the cables/fibre and deploy more network, and the ISPs could add a premium before reselling it to end users to cover support costs and maintaining equipment (e.g. routers, edge connections, etc).
Basically make the final mile public property. It would make real competition as smaller ISPs can now compete with large ones, and there isn't regularly problems for these companies (e.g. getting permits to place new cables).
Your comment assumes that capitalism is in place in the US. It is not. Cronyism, better known as fascism, is.
The balance of history suggests strongly that it does.
"an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."
Seeing as cronyism necessarily requires state influence and capitalism requires the lack of state influence, your conclusion falls on its face.
Unless you would like to argue that no true Scotsman would ever abuse a position to make a buck...
Because the state has colluded with certain companies to remove the 'free' from the above statement, the US internet is no longer a capitalistic system.
Your statement about all capitalism eventual collapsing to fascism deserves more evidence. If you could truly prove your point, you'd win a nobel prize.
The prerequisite to purchasing government actions is the government having the power/authority to take action. There's a reason lobbyists do not approach you or me.
Getting rid of government doesn't change the ability for the powerful to use money to apply coercive force against the powerless. You know that, right? It just means they have to do it themselves. Would you rather $EVIL_CORP own a Senator or own weapons of mass destruction?
Absent the government I'm not even certain there would be weapons of mass destruction. It is the state who demands these weapons to maintain its monopoly on force.
A business, on the other hand, is interested in making a profit. Absent government coercion, a business must provide a worthwhile good/service to make a profit, all while competing in the marketplace.
Anything an "$EVIL_CORP" might do pales in comparison to actions we know governments have done. One must only tally up the hundreds of millions of lives lost during the 20th century in senseless wars, democide, etc.
I understand that point-to-point wireless is more realistic in an urban environment than in the suburbs or a more rural setting. Do other cities have good alternate ISPs, or are SF residents somewhat unique in their appetite to try alternate providers?
If the distances are moderate (with line-of-sight) but demand is too sparse to warrant the cost of running coaxial / fiber (and distances are too far for DSL), a common alternative on the high end is fixed microwave, and on the low end Verizon LTE.
A good example is the Ames, Iowa area, where an ISP has set up a tower with good line of sight, and a bunch of directional antennas both on the tower and at customers locations. This setup provides great service out to ~15 miles or so, enough to cover the outskirts of this small town.
Some issues with this setup: storms cause 'rain fade' which blocks the signal, and the wireless spectrum does not scale to too many users. Also, there's a finicky antenna on the roof that can become misaligned in storms.