Most of us live in regional semi-monopolies with one big DSL provider, one big cable provider, and satellite which is the worst unless you're out in the boonies with dial up your only alternative.
We have AT&T here and I agree with you about them, although I've always liked their Death Star logo.
They are laying fiber optic cable here, and cabled areas get AT&T U-verse. Their fiber optic cables and boxes are out in the alley, connected to customers by their good old copper wire. So there is way more bandwidth for them, giving AT&T way more junk to sell you, but very minor improvement in their internet service for you. You can save money by bundling more than one product, and you can try bargaining with them (sometimes it works). We still have a landline telephone and I will throw them that bone. I can't use their cell phone service, we're a dead zone here in the boondocks of Chicago's inner city.
IT professionals I know mostly use our big alternative, Comcast. It costs more but they seem to regard it as the lesser of two weevils. My dentist ordered Comcast internet service only. To them, the internet is a teaser to sell you cable TV, but they finally agreed to sell him internet access only for a few dollars less. Curious about what he'd bought, he put a line splitter on their cable and ran his own cable to his cable-ready TV. Sure enough, he had all 17 of our local broadcast stations. No use to him at all (not a
Judge Judy fan) but he wanted to know what was there.
Right now, Comcast is the fastest game in town for me. I do wish we all had more competitive choices though.