Yeah, my building here in NYC, I can get Time Warner or DSL (Verizon or from a reseller). That's it. Lots of us are stuck with 1 or 2 crappy options. I have overpriced Time Warner and a Verizon hotspot as a backup because the TW cable connection goes down about once a month. The other option is DSL which is too slow to do work and was down a week of my 30 day trial when I checked it out years back.

Keep in mind that this is New York City. You'll have lesser options in many other places in the US.

I'm in Austin, TX.

We have two FTTH providers (AT&T, Grande). Grande offers 1Gbps now, AT&T is 300Mbps now, 1Gbps this summer. Time Warner offers 300Mbps now (DOCSIS).

Google fiber is being deployed this year (1Gbps).

Yeah, funny world - once one decent internet provider pops up in an area (Grande, presumably, and now the thread of Google Fiber too), all the other classic providers seem to provide the best service they offer throughout the country. AT&T doesn't offer that in 95% of their territory in the US (so like 99% of the US can't get it), and the same goes for Time Warner. If any area has decent internet options, it's not because of a classic / well known broadband ISP, it's only because of some small independent ISP that forced a local market to be competitive.

Austin is the best case scenario in the country.

The terrible consequences of competition.

broadbandnow.com isn't fine-grained enough to be trusted.

For my zip code they list AT&T UVerse, AT&T DSL, Cox and Time Warner. The reality of my actual address is that my only options are Time Warner and AT&T DSL (old school fully copper DSL, not UVerse). I'm positive these are my only wired options because I have researched this extensively (including actually calling the companies, not just relying on bad Internet data) due to being unhappy with my two options, and I continue to look into it about once every 6 months but nothing ever changes. Both AT&T UVerse and Verizon FiOS seem to have gone into deep slumber mode when it comes to service expansion.

The really sad part is that I've been using AT&T DSL for the past two years because while it is significantly slower than Time Warner cable in the bandwidth department, it has been far more reliable. Cost-wise both are a complete rip-off already, and if the government doesn't step in on the ISPs soon, I expect that the cost issue is going to get a lot worse, not better.

Yes, this site says I have Cox and Comcast in my zip code. I can assure you that Comcast is not doing cable internet business in my zip code or anywhere near my zip code. I don't believe they have a presence anywhere in the county.

Also the information blurb at the bottom says I have a fiber provider, but none are listed.

Finally, it's missing some local providers which I am positive exist; our local power/water provider also provides Ethernet to local business and some residential areas, but it's not listed.

I did this and keep doing it periodically. I only have 2 (but and I feel lucky). I keep bouncing between them to get "new customer" promotions for 2 years or so. Then I quit and switch to the other one. Sometimes talking to the "retention" department results in some minor bill reduction. But no, there are no 10 companies to choose from and picking the best one.