But in countless parts of the country, consumers are increasingly turning to community-run broadband networks as an alternative to this cavalcade of dysfunction. More than 750 communities around the country have now either built their own broadband networks or built local cooperatives in a quest for better, cheaper service.

A new survey by Consumer Reports once again highlights how consumers are responding positively to this home-grown approach to better broadband. The organization surveyed 176,000 Consumer Reports readers on their experience with their pay TV and broadband providers, and found that the lion’s share of Americans remain completely disgusted with most large, incumbent operators. The full ratings are paywalled but available here to those with a Consumer Reports subscription.

All the usual suspects including Comcast, Charter (Spectrum), AT&T, Verizon, and Optimum once again fell toward the bottom of the barrel in terms of overall satisfaction, reliability, and value, largely mirroring similar studies from the American Customer Satisfaction Index. One of the lone bright spots for broadband providers was Chattanooga’s EPB, a city-owned and utility operated broadband provider we profiled several years back as an example of community broadband done well. The outfit, which Comcast attempted unsuccessfully to sue into oblivion, was the only ISP included in the study that received positive ratings for value. “EPB was the top internet service provider in our telecom ratings two times in the past three years,” Christopher Raymond, electronics editor at Consumer Reports told Motherboard. “ Consumer Reports members have given it high marks for not only reliability and speed, but also overall value—and that's a rare distinction in an arena dominated by the major cable companies,” he said. A major problem is that incumbent broadband providers have gone to great lengths to nickel and dime subscribers with a wide variety of spurious surcharges and bogus fees. Regulators have historically been apathetic to this problem, which often involves making up entirely nonsensical fees, then hiding them below the line to pad the advertised rate post sale. As a result, most broadband and cable TV subscribers often have no idea what they’ll pay until they actually receive their first bill. To that end, Consumer Reports has been waging a new campaign dubbed What the Fee!? aimed at holding cable TV providers and ISPs accountable for what’s effectively false advertising. Raymond told me most municipal broadband providers are often too small to include in the organization’s rankings. That said, other studies have supported the idea that municipal broadband providers are more likely to offer better, cheaper service free of obnoxious surcharges and quickly-evaporating promotional savings.