[detritus]

If the cable company screws you, go to the other cable company— oops, there isn’t another cable company, because of that whole government-franchise-monopoly thing.

[taxcontrol]

Well other than the monopoly thing (gee isn't that more government control) there are still several alternatives.

ISP types:
cable
DSL
dialup
sattelite
3G
fiber optic
powerline (PDSL)
direct radio
wireless (wifi, wimax, wwan, 3G, Edge, etc)