What do you do if you have to use cable for internet? Most companies where I live make you get the basic TV plus home phone. The phone company's offerings are as much of a monopoly as the cable.
MrBoat
That's an interesting question because the "best" (whatever that means) internet provider will vary from one market or region to the next. In one market, it may be a telecom provider and in another market it may be a cable provider.
I can only speak for my own region and household. I believe Pogre lives close so he can fact check me. I'm in a little berg called Gilbert, Arizona. That's a satellite community to Phoenix. In our market, the major players are Centurylink (the old telecom piece of the Bell system), COX (the cable TV provider here), DISH network (a satellite dish based system). That's literally it for us. Both Centurylink and Cox Cable provide in excess of 95% coverage across the valley. There are bit players, but they are less than 5% of the market.
The key differentiator is technology: Centurylink is DSL and Cox is ethernet. Centurlyink's top speed is 100mbps and Cox will do 300mbps. Cox also has real customer service with people who can run tests, answer phone calls and send someone out to your place if somethings really, really broke. Centurylink is staffed by the keystone cops, they can't answer a phone, have no sense of what's going on and are mostly a giant waste of time. In another market they may be great. Here : not so much.
In another market that includes a player like Verizon with their FIOS (fiber) product, they are able to reach 1000mbps and have an excellent product. Verizon is both a wireless and a wired telecom and they do well as a cable provider too. In markets where Google gets to play or anybody providing truly high speed fibre, that's pretty good stuff there.
How to choose? There are rating services in every market. I can look at those for Phoenix and they all point to Cox for internet. My own experience says so as well. As does every other propeller head I know: they all use Cox for internet. In your market somebody should stand out. But, whether its a cable company or a telecom, I surely don't know.
Just one more thing : Cox wants to sell us the whole enchilada : internet, cable TV, telephone services, alarm services etc etc. When we cut the cord we got rid of everything except the internet function. There's should be an ala carte option to allow that. You may have to make a phone call to get it. They may whine and bitch and piss and moan. They may even charge you more for your basic internet. We cut it all except the internet anyway just based on principal. Great decision.
Hope this helps.