said by insomniac84 :

That is the problem. Because of monopolies and duopolies, it's very easy to charge much more than is reasonable. For most people there is nowhere else to go.

said by jimbo2150 :

I suppose one good thing can come of this: if companies start seriously pushing this it can give a serious boost to the idea of making broadband a utility. The companies that are looking to overcharge for the same or less service may actually cause their own downfall over the idea. Caps and limiting bandwidth is already showing signs of mass anger by the public.

said by jimbo2150 :

Exactly. While people in a larger city may have a few more options, people in most suburbs and rural areas have 1 or no options and cannot switch except back to dial-up. Most do not want to do that, and have no other viable broadband offer.

Also, most Starbucks don't suddenly add $3.00 markup to a product that has already been on the market for years at $1.10 and is consistently getting cheaper as time passes.

said by patcat88 :

Now is there anything remotely on the horizon as being a disruptive technology to the duopoly other than BPL (LOL) and WiMAX (and Clear seems pretty dead by now, its only hope is business/govt contracts in the city it did manage to set up service, but many cities already have their own 4.9 ghz WiMAX or HSDPA networks).