Unfortunately the only ISPs that I know of in Duluth are Charter and Qwest ... and Clearwire if you can consider that broadband.

Duluth could really use a locally run ISP, but there aren't any that I know of, short of installing your own line.

Charter is by far the fastest consumer connection, but it's also expensive since there's no competition. But I must say Charter has been pretty solid for me. I experience very few outages and they're usually back up fast.

I have never had a problem with Charter. We pay $35/month for 7meg service.

I have been on Clearwire almost since it launched in 2005.  I have had few problems always I've been able to get someone on the phone within minutes to help.  I don't think there has ever been downtime in my neighborhood (I've heard it has been sketchy some places, but that was few years ago).  One time the modem petered out and that sucked but the phone techs spent an hour or more with me getting it back up.  When that didn't work they overnighted us a new modem.  

I might not have the speed needs that you do.  I'm told that uploads are slower than downloads, however for the light stuff that I do there has never been a problem.  I can move my computer wherever or even take the modem out around town if (rarely) needed.  We pay about $40/mo.  Interesting that Starfire gets such great, fast service from Charter for only $35 though.  

One thing I would consider if I had the opportunity would be to get Sprint they have the same WiMax signal for their internet service and just use the phone for a "hot spot." That would be real savings eliminating both a land phone line (which I've already done) AND the wire.

Qwest DSL isn't bad, if you are in a place where you can get it at a decent speed. Charter cable is faster, but their service absolutely sucks balls.

You could try going Clearwire, or get internet access via a cell company (Verizon, etc.).

Other than that, your options are wait for Google Fiber, or dial-up.

I WISH WE HAD GOOGLE FIBER...but...don't we all??

My Charter service is horrible. I paid for an upgrade from their minimal speed service, don't use that much, but sometimes have to wait for 45 seconds for the PDD page to load, and much longer for something more complex. Sometimes (about 10% of the time) it's faster. They've said, well, you're trying to use it at peak times.  Really? Don't most residents use internet in the evening?  I don't think having basic pages take minutes to load is asking much. I wish I had a meter to show just how slow the downloads are so I could complain with real data.  (Is there a simple way of measuring the download speed?)

I had better service a few years ago when I had a Sprint card. I'm thinking of canceling the Charter and doing something else, but I'm not sure what. Suggestions are welcome.

I'm surprised with all the Charter issues.  I've got the 12mbps through my own router and its been pretty flawless for the better part of a year.  The only problem is the annoying telemarketing attempts that come with it.

If you're on Charter, testing your speed with Charter's own speed test, you won't be leaving the Charter network, so your results will always be higher than if you were to go test your speed against some external source.

A curious question though, does anyone know what happened to MMI Internet, and am I correct in believing that Hickory Tech absorbed the absolute failure that was CP Internet / Telcom?

Yeah, Hickorytech acquired CP Telecom back in 2009. I'm not sure what happened to MMI, but Superior Broadband became part of Compudyne and offers business class Internet service now. 

The days of the small ISP are pretty much gone. And until there is universal FTTH, it will pretty much stay that way.

I still have an MMI email account (gets the most spam of all my accounts).

Although, Charter does have one of my favorite local biz stories.
The Charter building used to be located on the corner of Superior and 3rd East. An employee was on the phone with a customer when a police car on a chase failed to cut the corner and ended up driving through the Charter doors and into the building. The employee on the phone saw the cop car stop feet from her desk and said politly to the person on the phone "I'm sorry, I need to go - the police are here."

Clearwire throttles downloads.

Adam, what does that mean, Clearwire "throttles" downloads?  I don't download much anymore, but sometimes streaming video is hiccuping (yeah, I watch the occasional TV show online).

Late to the game I know, but I thought I had something to add. Our company has a network of IP telephones that our employees use from home in various parts of the city and the employees who use Qwest DSL consistently have higher reliability.  Charter has been troublesome. In fact my charter service at home is down right now and has been down for at least 16 hours.  Our main office is served by DSL and has never been down in the last three years. The line is in use 15 hours per day 7 days per week, so we would have noticed any substantial outages.

"The U.S. operators with higher levels of detected throttling included Insight Communications, a cable-television operator in New York, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, where throttling was detected in 38 percent of tests; and Clearwire Communications, where throttling was detected in 35 percent of the tests.