The fiber is, to my knowledge, cheaper than the equivalent copper per mile. There's bigger than you'd think costs basically every step of the way to lay a new l

The fiber is, to my knowledge, cheaper than the equivalent copper per mile. There's bigger than you'd think costs basically every step of the way to lay a new line regardless of the medium, with the local power utility often times being a major hangup. The question is almost never about the cost of laying fiber vs laying copper, it's about laying a new line (fiber) or laying nothing (use existing copper). You have to get permission from every land owner whose ditch/yard you need to dig up. Using poles is usually not an option because they're typically owned by the local power utility who either won't let ISPs use them at all or drastically increase operating costs to the point where it's not feasible. Power supply for actively powered equipment can be hard in lower density (ie. rural) areas (from a bureaucratic standpoint). Copper nodes can sometimes be passively powered, but there's not much in fiber optics that can outside of GPON splitters.