Fiber To The Home Hits Small Towns

from the forget-the-cities dept

With the increasing acceptance of various wireless technologies, I had assumed that eventually the idea of fiber to the home would die down, and be replaced by some form of wireless technology - since the installation costs would appear to be significantly lower. However, according to this venture capitalist, the future of high speed broadband via fiber-to-the-home is in small towns. While people have always downplayed the potential of fiber-to-the-home due to its high costs, and with the telecom bubble collapse things look even bleaker, the article has some interesting arguments suggesting the analysts are wrong. It points out that there are plenty of small local telephone companies who have the incentive to install fiber-to-the-home in their local communities, sometimes with the aid of municipal governments who are trying to make their towns more attractive. It's getting cheaper to bring fiber all the way to the home, and the ability to them offer all sorts of additional services is compelling. In towns with new developments going up, its even easier, since things can be set up beforehand with fiber to avoid all the expense of digging up trenches and retrofitting the fiber.