Eh, Fiber is expensive. It's getting better, though; a big part of the expense is the skill required to splice fiber, and they are developing better and easie

Eh, Fiber is expensive. It's getting better, though; a big part of the expense is the skill required to splice fiber, and they are developing better and easier ways to splice all the time. I betcha the last mile is going to suck for most people for a long time. And you know? I don't think it matters as much as we think. If it does matter for you (It matters for me, certainly) you will move to the places where fiber is available. Yeah, google fiber gets all the press, but surewest has been doing fiber to the home in Sacramento for close to a decade now. (I mean, fiber matters a lot to me, but not enough for me to move to Kansas... or Sacramento, for that matter. Ugh.) Here in silicon valley, both the city of Palo Alto and the city of Santa Clara (see http://svpfiber.com http://svpfiber.com or email me if you want to get in on an in-progress project) have municipal fiber rings. It's aimed at businesses, and /only/ does the last mile (which is to say, once you get to the data centre you will still have to pay someone for transit to the internet. And you will have to pay to trench to your house, so you are probably looking at $500/month minimum and maybe $10K one time to trench in to your house. Still, worth it to not live in Sacramento. Ugh.) I mean, what I'm trying to say is that there are really good tubes, here in America. I, myself, have 12 gigabits of burst capacity (a 6.2 gigabit commit) Yes, our last mile for most people is shit. But the last mile for everyone, everywhere is shit. Just like in Africa, I personally predict that it's going to be wireless, for most of us. And for most of you? wireless is just fine. I mean, yeah, cheap fiber for everyone like they are said to have in Japan, or in Kansas or in Sacramento would be super great, but I don't think that only having that in a few places will cripple us. I mean, when it really matters, even here in America, if fiber matters to you, you can get it by paying a small (compared to developer salaries) fee, or by moving somewhere unpleasant.