Cut the cord for home broadband? Not so fast

Question: I need a broadband Internet connection — no phone, no TV, just data — for my new home in Naples (FL). What are my options? Answer: Realistically, this reader only has one option. And that's the case for many Americans. Few can choose between two services offering uncapped bandwidth faster than maybe 5 Mbps; almost none can indulge in offerings like the 1-billion-bits-per-second, $70-ish connections available from Google Fiber in Kansas City, Sonic.net in the Bay Area and the municipally owned power utility in Chattanooga (TN).

This lack of competition explains the debate over "net neutrality" regulations that ban Internet providers from blocking or slowing access to some sites — and which Verizon is suing the Federal Communications Commission to have overturned. If you don't appreciate your ISP rearranging the Internet in those ways, firing it and switching to another is not always so easily done … as our reader probably now realizes.