Why Is Decent Internet So Hard to Find in San Francisco? Part 1 of ???

I live in one of the densest cities in the US... San Francisco. 49 square miles with 80000+ residents, yet getting a good reliable Internet connection is far more difficult than it should be. 

At this point, I am with AT&T DSL, because it's the standard phone provider, and DSL was counted as an add-on service. I sorta forgot to look at the overall picture, and turns out I was paying $170 a month for 2 phone lines and 1 18 Mbps down / 1.5 Mbps up ADSL line. Including tax. 

Which is ridiculous. That sort of connection won't even get me onto many "work from home" jobs which demands are much better connection. At times, I was getting even LESS than that. My actual usable speed is more like 14 Mbps down / 0.9 Mbps up, as tested by Speedtest. 

Screenshot of my Speedtest results from Nov 2020 to Feb 2021

So I clicked over to AT&T's website, and click on "upgrade my service". Turns out, they only offer ONE level of service to me... the Internet 18 ADSL plan. And I am already on it. And with phone and taxes, it costs me $170 a MONTH. 

My phone's LTE service (through Verizon) was much faster. Averages 80 Mbps down and 10-15 Mbps up. And Verizon is supposedly rolling out "5G Home Internet" in San Francisco. So I went to Verizon's website. Except they aren't. NEITHER 4G/LTE nor 5G Home Internet service is available at my address, and I've had my Verizon account for YEARS. Over a decade, actually. 

So I was thinking... can I use my LTE to supplement my DSL? Turns out, you *can* with Speedify. Connect / tether your phone to your PC, run Speedify, and Speedify will combine BOTH connections into one solid connection for your streaming or uploads or whatever you need. I have one of Verizon's unlimited plans for my cell. Problem solved, right? Wrong, unfortunately. Turns out, unlimited is for phone usage only. Tethering has a 15 GB limit a month, after which it slows down to 0.6 Mbps instead of 15 Mbps.  I blew through the 15GB data cap in TWO DAYS (just for uploading some gameplay videos). So that clearly won't work. I actually paid for a 3-year service (it's only like $3 a month) and I had to cancel. Fortunately, Speedify has a 30-day money-back guarantee. And I HIGHLY recommend the service if you can find a use case for it. 

So back to the search...  I was thinking... if I can't get Home Internet from Verizon, can I get it from one of their competitors? Given AT&T doesn't offer that, it had to be T-Mobile. Turns out, T-Mob has the SAME PROBLEM. No 4G/LTE Home service available at my address in downtown San Francisco, which is definitely in their service zone... for mobile, but not home internet. 

So what's a man who wants the internet to do? Check ALL competitors, of course. This brings me to... Comcast. Let's just say, I've heard horror stories about Comcast, lock you in with modem "rental" that you can easily buy one off eBay or whatever, have to call them every year to demand the promotional rate... But cable Internet does offer a lot better throughput without getting on fiber, which is very limited availability. 

So I get online and chat with Comcast sales rep. He said he will send an engineer out to do a "site survey" to verify availability and get back to me. 48 hours later, I got a call... Turns out, my block is NOT on Comcast's network, but good news... They will wire up my block in the next 60 to 90 days. Guess enough people on my block demanded it to put it on the schedule. But that doesn't help me at all then, does it? And the guy has the gall to ask me if I want to continue the install. I told him no (probably in an exasperated tone.)

I look around for other vendors, but there really aren't many other choices. 

I called Sonic Internet and they will set me up with dual-line bonded DSL which supposedly will do 60 Mbps down and 10-15 Mbps up. Not quite LTE speed but it's uncapped and unlimited. AND it comes with a phone line... for $130 a month (or less). So basically, it's 4x the bandwidth (or more) than AT&T's service, for $30-40 a month LESS than what I pay AT&T now. 

Sign me up, please. 

Then I cancel AT&T. 

I may revisit the situation in 12 months.  I can go without the phone line (nobody calls on the landline, it's not even connected) so Verizon 5G Home Internet will end up costing less and give me MORE bandwidth... if it ever rolls out.