said by KrK:said by IowaCowboy:Urban areas are great in terms of broadband availability and usually have one or two, maybe three broadband providers.
It's hardly great, the vast majority has a choice between 2 or 1, and it's overpriced and usually restricted and capped. There isn't anything great about it. Most people are paying $60 + for service that should be half that or less, and it's all due to the lack of competition and established geographical boundary lines.
Back in the '90s, dial-up was $19.95 and that did not include the cost of the phone line ($12.60 on Qwest in Iowa), add the two numbers together and today that would be $46.06 adjusted for inflation between 1997 (when I first got Internet) and 2012. That does not include the taxes and fees. Many people bought second phone lines for Internet as they did not want to tie up phone lines to hours on AOL or chat rooms. So the costs of broadband are not much higher for broadband than they were for dial-up back in the '90s. And many people back then subscribed to cable. I subscribe to cable myself and find it cheaper to buy the triple play. Comcast also has a double play (Internet and TV) in my area as well.
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