In Australia at least it's not actually a problem. While we have an incredibly low population density, it turns out that almost all (92 to 95% or something) of

In Australia at least it's not actually a problem. While we have an incredibly low population density, it turns out that almost all (92 to 95% or something) of the population actually live in fairly highly populated cities and towns. The vast majority of the country is mostly uninhabited apart from a thin strip around parts of the coast and then a few inland cities. This is why the previous Australian Government set out to build a wholesale-only fibre network that the private carriers could competitively deliver services over, to reach 93% of the population (the remaining 7% is a combination of satellite and fixed wireless). This was to fix a problem that had been created by a past Government when the old Government-owned monopoly carrier had been privatised into a single huge anti-competitive company who doesn't do any upgrades unless somebody else does - such as when another company put in an HFC network, the monopoly (Telstra) overbuilt almost the exact same areas with a competing network, not touching anywhere else... Unfortunatley the new Government is dismantling the new plan, and replacing it with a token FTTN effort to "save money" because of a fallacious "budget emergency", even though financial modeling shows that the FTTP plan actually had a better chance of making a profit (which was to be re-invested in expanding the fibre footprint and upgrading the network). Strangely enough, it's the party who created the Telstra problem last time they were in power...