corvetteguy i feel you. i pay $30 for the same service, but i cant get uverse. the max my line can get is around 5Mbps and no way in hell will i deal with charter.
unfornately, a recent report by FCC says 2/3rds of americans dont have broadband which is defined to have 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up.
FCC Says Most American Broadband Connections ... Aren't - The Takeaway
i say most of the problem is people dont know and care, and the telecommunication companies have such a strangehold on certain markets. for example, i live in Redding, CA with a pop. of about 110k yet we only have 3Mbps down DSL or 6Mbps down from Cable and the price difference is about double ($25 vs $50 respectively). Its been this way for nearly a decade and the companies dont bother to upgrade their networks because people are paying and not complaining.
You can argue that America is so big that there is no way provide FiOS like speed to everyone in an acceptable time frame. Seriously though, do the metro cities first and worry about boonies second because a majority of the pop. are in those cities. I lived in Sacramento and they over the exact services as Redding except its Comcast with slighty higher speeds. WTF????
With some many connections depending on broadband now eg Xbox Live, Netflix, Cloud computing, etc... we need to vote with our pockets and tell those bastards to upgrade their network.. Sh*t, tell me it isnt ironic that in Sacramento my Tmobile HSPA+ network is faster than most home broadbands (5Mbps down vs 3Mbps)...... End of Rant.....
as to 95b16, in the surveys i looked (pcmag and consumer report) most people vote Qwest higher than Comcast. What i suggest is, try them both? Most ISPs dont have lenghty contracts anymore and no activation or installation if you do it yourself (very very simple, provide lines are connected properly). Youll be without interwebz for about 1-2 weeks switching between the two, but that you get new customer deals which are tremendously cheaper than existing.
lastly, hondafreak, for free internet that exceeds most DSL speeds, id say tahts a mighty fine deal.