I use a landline and a DSL service in San Francisco. There are only two companies that deliver residential Internet service. The reason we have only two is that our city government, in its general level of incompetence, has made sure to create two monopolies that do not work in the interest of the citizens.
Last week I went five days without a landline and its associated Internet service. I use AT&T and their service is so sub standard that it is really only good for raccoons and gophers.
What I want to suggest to my blog readers is that you get a backup service in the form of a T-Mobile hotspot. That is DSL over smartphone towers. I was able to use my iPad with the mobile hotspot instead of the computer based Internet from AT&T. T-mobile has it for $5 a month.
I have plenty of business to carry out and many important personal appointments. None would have been possible during the five days in which AT&T failed to arrive and deal with my service.
Why AT&T would assume that an ordinary residential human can go that many days without Internet service, I do not know. A high proportion of people with only residential operations are deeply involved in day-to-day commerce. I would guess the number is somewhere over one quarter of residential service users. And considering the need to carry on business after the standard workday that number could be closer to half.
Get with it AT&T and Comcast.
In spite of these monopolies I urge my readers to have a hotspot telephone-based Internet backup.