Fair enough, and I appreciate what Google has done to move it along. But really, pound for pound, I think cable has been most responsible for democratizing bro

Fair enough, and I appreciate what Google has done to move it along. But really, pound for pound, I think cable has been most responsible for democratizing broadband in the US. The real reason I see fiber even in rural areas is because the incumbent telco was forced to bring it in because their DSL service over copper could no longer compete with what the cable companies were providing over the same coax that's been hanging there for decades. It's really an unfair advantage that the cable companies had when you think about it. As a side note: my sense has been that normies don't actually appreciate low-latency, inexpensive FTTP until they have it, and maybe not even then. I live in a small metro area that is 100% covered (suburbs and urban) by the incumbent cable company who will give you 300/12 minimum cable broadband, as well as near-100% coverage with FTTP by the incumbent telco (suburbs only). All the techies, including me, have FTTP and most everyone else I know has cable because it's a little cheaper and, to them, equivalent because they only know to compare on the top-line download number and don't care about upload speed or latency (nor should they).