2013, like just about every year before it, was the year nearly all of us complained about our Internet service.

"It's too slow!" we said. "Too expensive!" And we were generally right, as a study by the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute found that US consumers pay more for slower service than counterparts in other countries.

But 2013 wasn't just more of the same—there were big developments that make 2014 worth watching, for good and bad reasons. Inspired by Google Fiber, cities are increasingly looking for ways to get their own fiber networks and give the US broadband market much-needed competition. On the potentially bad side of the equation, a legal challenge to network neutrality laws by Verizon could further degrade competition, particularly in streaming video.

As we look back at 2013 and ahead to next year, let's start with the good news. Google Fiber came to Kansas City in late 2012 and is headed to Provo, Utah, and Austin, Texas, in 2014. Google isn't about to wire up the whole country, and it's far from the first to install fiber-to-the-home networks. But the Web company's entry into the ISP market showed that competition does benefit consumers. In Austin, Google's planned network spurred AT&T to bring fiber to homes with download speeds of 300Mbps today and a gigabit next year. (One caveat: AT&T's standard service comes with ads targeted to you based on your Web history.) Even communities that didn't win the Google Fiber lottery are taking it upon themselves to lure fiber providers as an alternative to cable or DSL.

In November we described how officials in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Bryan/College Station area in Texas are laying the groundwork for fiber networks to benefit residents and make the cities more attractive to businesses. Los Angeles has a similar plan (although it may not be an entirely realistic one ).

These cities are still planning to rely on ISPs, hoping that incentives can lure a new provider or convince existing ones to build out fiber networks to rival Google's.

Some communities are taking more direct control over their fates. In Leverett, Mass., planning that began in 2011 is expected to result in the deployment next year of a fiber-to-the-home network "that will be operated by a publicly controlled Municipal Light Plant entity," a case study by Harvard researchers said. "The MLP will operate independently of Leverett’s political infrastructure, but will be required by state law to charge subscribers no more than the cost of providing service."

This month, the city of Ellensburg, Washington, approved a contract to begin construction of a publicly owned fiber network. Officials in Chattanooga, Tennessee, previously showed how a government-run fiber network can rival or surpass a private one. Residents there can purchase 100Mbps connections for $57.99 a month and gigabit connections for $69.99 a month from the community-owned electric utility. It even helped residents who subscribe to traditional ISPs—after the network launched in 2011, incumbents Comcast and AT&T finally started upgrading their services, utility officials told Ars.

Another approach is for cities to create an open network that can be used by any provider to sell Internet. The Utopia network in Utah is perhaps the best example, but its mixed track record may be holding back the open access model.

"The network is deep in debt while serving a fraction of those they intended to," Christopher Mitchell, director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, told Ars. "On the other hand, Utopia has some of the fastest Internet access in the nation and affordable rates, and people who have access have a real choice in providers. Plus it encouraged Comcast and US West [now CenturyLink] to expedite their local investments."

Lessons were learned in Utah that can help other cities looking to bypass the private market, Mitchell believes. Still, he notes that "the open access model has been set back by Utopia's experience, and Utopia is regularly cited by those who try to convince cities to just let the 'private sector' solve this—as though it were a functioning market."

In 2014, we'll find out just how the plans of Los Angeles, Louisville, Bryan/College Station, Leverett, Ellensburg, and other cities pan out. Although competition is still distressingly absent in much of America, one thing that's clear is numerous cities are no longer content to simply accept what few options ISPs give them.

Now for the bad news...

While US residents rarely have many good choices of home Internet providers, at least we have the guarantee that ISPs can't place any giant restrictions on what content we can access over the Internet.

That's because of the Federal Communication Commission's 2010 Open Internet Order, a set of network neutrality rules that forbid ISPs from blocking services or charging content providers for access to their networks.

If the law were overturned, ISPs could more easily steer customers to their own services and away from those of their rivals. They could charge companies like Netflix for the right to have their videos prioritized over other types of Internet traffic, perhaps indirectly raising the price consumers pay for streaming video and making it more difficult for startups to compete against established players who can afford the "Internet fast lane" fees.

That's what Verizon wants, as its lawsuit to overturn the network neutrality law went to court in September. A ruling is likely to come in early 2014 from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The appeals court judges were skeptical of the FCC's arguments in favor of network neutrality, giving cheer to opponents of the law and reason to worry for consumer advocates.

"We believe a DC Circuit panel majority signaled today at oral arguments that it’s inclined to pare back FCC Open Internet rules in a way that would allow cable and telco broadband providers to charge Internet edge providers for improved connections to broadband customers," the telecom analyst firm Stifel wrote after a September court proceeding. "At the same time, the panel seemed inclined to uphold the FCC’s authority to regulate broadband to some extent… Such an outcome could give telcos and cable new flexibility to strike paid-prioritization deals for offering better service to Internet edge providers (e.g., Google, Amazon, Netflix), which could also include media companies (e.g., Disney, Fox, CBS, Viacom, Time Warner Cable). Whether it would be good or bad for edge/media providers would depend on their business plans and financial wherewithal, but it could create faster 'toll' lanes that give big edge players advantages over upstarts."

ISPs can already degrade the quality of rival video services indirectly by refusing to upgrade the peering infrastructure that lets traffic pass from one network to another, or by refusing to use caching systems that improve the quality of services like Netflix and YouTube. Gutting the Open Internet Order would let ISPs take more direct aim at their rivals.

Some members of Congress are concerned about ISPs limiting consumers' choice in video services. US Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has proposed comprehensive legislation to restrict the ways ISPs can overcharge customers and degrade the quality of rival online video services, while boosting the FCC's ability to regulate.

Rockefeller wants to prevent ISPs from using data caps to discriminate against third-party services, an important goal as Comcast and other cable providers are likely to increase the use of caps in 2014, making you pay more if you use a lot of bandwidth-heavy services.

There is also reason to worry about newly sworn-in FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's approach to network neutrality. In recent comments, he seemed to accept as inevitable a future in which Netflix will have to pay ISPs to get high-quality access to consumers.

"I am a firm believer in the market," he said in response to a question after a policy speech. “I think we’re also going to see a two-sided market where Netflix might say, ‘well, I’ll pay in order to make sure that you might receive, my subscriber receives, the best possible transmission of this movie.’ I think we want to let those kinds of things evolve. We want to observe what happens from that, and we want to make decisions accordingly, but I go back to the fact that the marketplace is where these decisions ought to be made, and the functionality of a competitive marketplace dictates the degree of regulation."

Wheeler was asked by US Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to clarify what he meant in a subsequent congressional hearing. Wheeler responded:

I am strong supporter of the Open Internet rules, full stop. The rules were written in such a way as to envision opportunities for innovation and experimentation, and to impose on them a balance between protecting the open Internet, protection consumers, and stimulating innovation. New ideas under the Open Internet order, new ideas such as those you have referenced, in a wireless environment particularly, are not prohibited. But there is a clear responsibility for the Commission to make sure that what takes place does not interfere with Internet access, is not anticompetitive, and does not provide preferential treatment. And we will enforce that. We will maintain the balance between innovation and ensuring there is an open Internet.

Wheeler's reference to "a wireless environment" is potentially important, because the Open Internet Order's rules generally apply to wired Internet rather than cellular service. Still, he hasn't quite answered the question of whether Netflix could be forced to pay ISPs for better access to consumers of fixed Internet service, even though such a scenario would likely violate the FCC's rules. We've asked an FCC spokesman for a more specific answer or an interview with Wheeler, but no further clarification seems to be coming.

All of this is to say that there are many reasons to watch what happens in the US Internet market in 2014 and beyond. We don't know just how far fiber deployments will advance next year or how the regulatory questions will be resolved, but the issues we've described are sure to have a big impact on broadband prices, competition, and quality of service.