I reallly, really wish that were feasible and that simple. But it's not. Where I live (quiet little residential nook in Los Angeles), I have the choice of AT&T

I reallly, really wish that were feasible and that simple. But it's not. Where I live (quiet little residential nook in Los Angeles), I have the choice of AT&T DSL maxing out at 1500kbps/256? for like $50/month, Time Warner cable 10mbit/1mbit for $45/month and..well...speakeasy offers DSL at speeds close to what TWC offers for um, something like $180/month. And given all the stuff I do, dialup is not really feasible. I could go with a wireless provider, but they're not that different from AT&T or TWC. $45. $180. That is not "a little bit more". That difference of $135 is enough to buy groceries for a week for the three of us living together here. Sure we could suck it up and get ripped off by that much more for another ISPs services, but $135 is also money for gas, fun dinners, nights out, just short of a share of Apple, some games... $135 a month over one year ends up being enough to buy a nice little MacBook Air..or upgrading the hardware I have now...you get the idea. As much as I'd like to tell TWC to suck it, like I did with AT&T when my DSL disconnected for the hundredth time in the past year and I switched to TWC for the savings and speeds, I can't because nobody else offers speeds like it at a more reasonable price. Hell, I am still complaining about only getting 10/1 for $45/month. But I should consider myself lucky, because some of my friends don't even have a choice and are stuck with one ISP that'll provide service in their area. So I wish people would stop with the whole "switch to another ISP" argument, because everyone wants to but they can't. In the US they are ALL just as bad as each other, and the only ones that aren't are either unavailable or extremely expensive.