[anigbrowl]

If companies weren't effectively buying monopoly rights from local authorities their prices might be lower too. Here in San Francisco you still can't get residential fiber in over half the city, and you can't have it without bundled TV or phone service so the minimum is $80/mo for a 15/5 connection in the neighborhoods where it is available. There's one cable provider and one DSL provider, and the services are proportionately expensive.

For a major city in a financial/tech hub of the world's richest country, the available consumer options are pretty weak.