I'm in Alabama as well.
My choices where I currently live are:
WOW! - no caps
Mediacom (current provider) - $35 a month for 200Mb down - supposed 2TB cap
AT&T - The fastest I can get from them is 15Mb down with a no clue what they provide in terms of upload speed, and yet it is supposedly fiber. 🤣
AT&T is a joke. way higher prices for way lower speed.
I change between Mediacom and WOW! every time my "new customer" deal expires.
We are also supposed to be getting Google Fiber in my area pretty soon, so I will probably end up switching to that whenever it becomes available.
The problem with the single ISP available in a lot of areas is:
1. If you live in a housing development, the ISP that bids the lowest gets an exclusivity deal to be the only ISP in that development
2. When you have multiple ISPs available, a lot of the time they give really similar pricing and then tell you that they don't compete with each other. The last time I moved, I got a piece of paper mail from my old provider recommending one of the other providers because my old provider was not available in that area..... yeah, no price fixing going on there...
3. Existing providers do everything in their power to keep other providers from coming in. They keep stuff tied up in regards to permits for as long as possible and hope that new providers that want to come in just give up.
You also have to take into account how spread out things are in the US. If it isn't economically feasible for ISPs to run connections to a few people out in the boonies or to areas with lower population in general, they are not going to do it. they are in business to make money, not to spend their money on things that will never make a return on their investment.