Even our readers can’t agree on whether net neutrality is a good or a bad thing, so we thought we’d stoke the fire with a nice side-by-side comparison of sample broadband options for consumers in two “free markets,” the US and the UK. Art Brodsky of the Huffington Post (oops, we probably already lost half of you) writes that a British man he met while traveling showed him a spreadsheet he’d put together that compared 59 different broadband providers, so he’d know which one to do business with.

This fairytale-like story of consumer choice prompted Brodsky to look for comparison charts of services. What he found—a mag’s list of 25 common UK broadband companies versus what we presume to be his own local set of offerings—can’t be used for true side-by-side measurement, but it’s still a striking illustration of the stunted state of “innovation” and competition in the US market.

Click the links for more details on pricing and plan details, if you dare.

US Broadband Companies (offerings available in Montgomery County, Maryland, from HuffingtonPost.com)	25 UK Broadband Companies (most of which are available nationwide; from Which? magazine, August 2007)
Verizon Comcast	AOL Be BT Bulldog Demon Eclipse Freedom2Surf Global Karoo Internet Madasafish MetroNet Nildram Orange (formerly Wanadoo) Pipex PlusNet Sky Supanet TalkTalk Tesco Telecoms Tiscali Toucan UK Online Utility Warehouse Virgin Media (cable/DSL) Waitrose Zen Internet

“Our Internet Policy Is A Disgrace: Here’s The Proof” [HuffingtonPost via Yahoo! News]
(Photo: Getty)

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