> My high-speed internet comes from an independent company that also handles our cable TV. I'm not certain if this would affect me in any way,

Guaranteed it would, because I absolutely guarantee that your traffic goes through one of the big telcos at some point. Just do a traceroute to www.microsoft.com sometime and look at all the places you hit.

Your little company almost certainly leases lines from one of the big telco to handle your traffic once it gets to their offices. So apart from the "last mile" from their offices to your house, your traffic probably travels mostly over the wires of one of the big telcos.

-- Dave