Re: Time for terabit DSL so competition is maintained
Where do you live that the telco was willing to run MILES of fiber to service a single home? (I presume, unless you had a ton of neighbors that also were getting hooked up)
Around here if you are more than a quarter mile off the cable company network you have to pay per foot (at some outrageous rate, a guy I know who lives in the sticks said they were quoted several thousand dollars to run the 2000 feet from the highway to their house, so he stuck with Directv for TV and a Verizon LTE router for internet) and the telcos would laugh at you if you suggested fiber. They'll only run copper because they are legally required to, but it only has to provide voice service they are under no obligation to make it provide serviceable DSL.
Fiber is better, but totally unnecessary since 10 gigabit symmetric on cable HFC networks is here today (well at least possible where I live though while they've gone DOCSIS 3.1 I don't think they have the equipment for full duplex yet since only businesses would be interested in a speed like that) Fixed wireless 5G will offer gigabit symmetric in a few years and maybe terabit DSL too at least in some areas.
Running fiber to the home costs about $1000 PER HOUSE to trench fiber from the curb in an existing neighborhood. The cable company is running aerial fiber in areas with poles since it is armored (and as a result very expensive, but that's necessary due to the potential for overhead lines to come down due to icing) but all telco fiber plus any fiber going to homes from the one regional LEC doing fiber in a nearby town is 100% underground. You won't lay that at 10 kph, it would take months or quite possibly over a year to run a few miles depending on how many other buried services there are, what roads/waterways had to be crossed if they have a conduit path, etc. To get fiber at my business it took two years for them to run the last mile, though I'm sure it wouldn't have been quite that long if they'd made it their #1 priority to run that last mile down a major highway.