[tcwc]

In the UK our situation is much better, although BT owns most of the physical cable "Local loop unbundling" forces them to share their lines with competitors.

It seems in the US the only people you can buy from own the physical infrastructure. Once one company has already built their network in an area they form a natural monopoly - it's not economical for competitors to come in and rebuild the network when they know they'll only be able to get a certain % of households to switch.

[aidenn0]

That used to not be the case with DSL, but about a decade ago the FCC reclassified internet services in such a way that it was no longer the case. The theory was that this would encourage the providers to upgrade the local loop.

[edit] The above was from memory, and it is actually a lot more complicated than that. The decoupling of broadband from voice was challenged in court and the FCC had to change their rules somewhat. I'm not sure what current requirements are. See also:

http://openjurist.org/359/f3d/554/united-states-telecom-asso...

A quick key for reading that: ILEC == people who own the copper CLEC == people who want to use the copper.