We have a broadband monopoly problem here in the US.
I recently moved ITP (colloquial for inside the perimeter) of the metropolitan city of Atlanta in a little part of town called Brookhaven. The move was fueled by increasing costs at my prior residence and the fact they were going to force washer/dryer rent on my fiancé and I. This got me scouting for a new place that had EV chargers (I drive a chevy volt plug in hybrid electric vehicle). And as I signed the lease, Google Fiber raised my eyebrows when the office lady mentioned they were coming soon.
Soon like next year? More than likely. This [is] the greatest thing since sliced bread! >900 mega bits per second. Thats a full HD film in 45 seconds. You can stream 6 4k movies simultaneously. I mean we are talking god like status here, nothing comes close in value to this stuff. ($50 for 100mbps and $70 for 1000 mbps).
Now I do my fair share of tableting before knocking off to sleep. Reading up on the city of Brookhaven's reddit sub I found out that there is a substation distribution build that's holding things up. The park it was chosen to be built is apparently not to everyone's excitement.
https://m.reddit.com/r/Atlanta/comments/3x5ph2/city_of_brookhaven_google_fiber_hut_variance_at/?compact=true
http://brookhavenpost.co/2015/11/13/google-eyes-parkside-park-on-dresden-dr-for-fiber-hut-variance-needed/34945/
This park is smaller than most USPS offices, and there is not private property boarding it except for some apartment complexes and a fire station. But until this box is built, we're going to keep getting taxed by AT&T and Crapcast. And this brings me to my point.
Not only do we have mayor's like Brookhaven's John Ernst whom I believe has some AT&T padded wallet influence. But take a look at senator Marsha Blackburn. She has tried to convince the country that we need to block the FCC from loaning money out to cities like Lafayette, LA from creating it's own municipal fiber optic network "LUS Fiber." She hides under the net neutrality banner to get coverage but she's a wolf in sheep's clothing. My opinion is that the American's (of the USA) are fed up with this harassment coming from DC. We need to, more now than ever, follow the paper trails to route out this corruption. We can so easily write off seemingly retarded activity as typical idiots that run this country. But all you need to do is look at who would gain/loose money in any case to find the truth. In the end it's all about money. The fat cats in corporate America are ruining for all of us to turn an easy profit. And if you want to understand a bit more of how we got in this mess, watch the documentary "Century of the Self." A story of how Nazi propaganda was rehashed into Public Relations to manipulate the masses. A practice started by the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Burney. A guy who made more money than you can imagine by tapping into people's inner desires and lower compulsions to drive a consumerism. If you've ever heard the phrase "torches of freedom" for women's suffrage. That title opened up women's smoking to Big tobacco in the early 1900's.
Look up your local cities/municipalities state & government and get involved. If anything just read up on what's running our lives govtrack.us is a great resource that lets you download PDF's of bills heading to the floor for voting.
Take Aaron Swartz the creator of reddit, for example. Before he off'd himself from the pressure the Feds placed on him (essentially martyring him for downloading millions of scientific journals so that they could be made freely available to the public) he created a website that essentially shut down the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) bill. Very sophisticated btw. You clicked a link and within a few seconds your were audibly reading a script to an inundated congressman/senators voice mailbox. This is an incredible achievement that, if failed, would have started a process of slowly controlling every way we used the web.
Keep on sailing me mateys, ARRGgghh!