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Fiber internet
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I sure hope so. Fiber internet really doesn't exist where I live, and it feels to me like it exists in about every other city (I know this isn't true, but that's how I think about it). And even then, it's probably stupid expensive—but I hope one day it'll be as affordable as regular cable internet is.
I just moved to an area that has a smaller company rolling out fiber everywhere, and it's actually considerably cheaper than what I was paying for cable internet. Because monopoly.
Around here fiber is about the same price as cable. Granted with cable it's 300Mb and fiber is 100Mb, comparing the low end for both...you can get faster but of course it's more expensive. However fiber is symmetrical and guaranteed to be the speed you're paying for, and cable is neither. It's far slower for uploads (300/10 compared to 100/100) and given that the 300 is theoretical, probably not even much faster for downloads in the real world. Not to mention that with fiber you're not forced into buying TV service.
Entry-level fibre is 300/100 here, with 1000/500 also commonplace. Many areas, including my town of 20k people, have 2000/2000, 4000/4000 and 8000/8000 options also available (albeit expensive).
It's typically the same price as copper, and more than half of all connections in the country are now using it. They're even beginning to discontinue copper services in some areas.
It's typically the same price as copper, and more than half of all connections in the country are now using it. They're even beginning to discontinue copper services in some areas.
My impression is that it is spreading rapidly and will replace cable in the near future, at least in developed areas. Living in the Houston Texas suburbs, we just got asecond company running fiber though our neighborhood. In rural areas, it might take a long while.
Even in rural areas outside of my city, they're still on DSL. I just know because I know people who live out there. I mean I get decent download speeds with cable here at home (we have the 300 Mbps Comcast plan), but the upload is kinda bad.
Fiber internet isn't available in homes yet where I live, only in some businesses. My guess is that it's going to take a LONG TIME for us to get fiber. Probably so long that I'll be living somewhere else by that point lol
EDIT: I looked it up, and there is in fact a company that is "starting construction" for a fiber internet service in my area. Dunno how long it's going to take for it to be available though
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We're spoiled here with Fios. 1GB/1GB here, and it's very consistent. I don't even remember the last time I've had buffering.
I live in Massachusetts and we're not fully using fiber-optic. My town for instance doesn't have it, and I abut Boston. I think Boston is mostly but not completely wired with Fiber-optic as well. Go farther out to the western parts of my state and I think there's less and less.
I don't see this changing in the long term, never mind near future.
When I was stationed at Fort Belvoir the local small ISP decided in zeros to only put fiber pole to pole only and still keep cable to homes! Only business accounts got fiber to home in that deal! I found out later that years later they started fiber to home users if the paid a small fee!
I'm torn on this one based on what I see around Raleigh, NC... AT&T keeps having multi-day fiber outages around here. And it's always occurred to me: it takes a specialist to repair or splice damaged fiber. It's not nearly as difficult to repair damaged copper coaxial cable. Do I really trust these huge corporate monopolies to have enough fiber techs?
I can get Spectrum cable or AT&T Fiber in my neighborhood. They just ran the fiber thru here last year. But I'm sticking with Spectrum for now based on everything I hear about AT&T Fiber (it's great IF it works). My Spectrum service is speedy enough and reliable. If it ain't broke...
Anyway, to answer the question: I'm sure fiber will become more ubiquitous long-term, but if it's all owned by various regional monopolies, I'm not sure it's gonna be all that great.
I can get Spectrum cable or AT&T Fiber in my neighborhood. They just ran the fiber thru here last year. But I'm sticking with Spectrum for now based on everything I hear about AT&T Fiber (it's great IF it works). My Spectrum service is speedy enough and reliable. If it ain't broke...
Anyway, to answer the question: I'm sure fiber will become more ubiquitous long-term, but if it's all owned by various regional monopolies, I'm not sure it's gonna be all that great.
All providers are transitioning to fiber and have a plann to retire copper based facilities. My opinion is that you may not get fiber to the home but fiber that goes 99% of the way and comes in to the house over wireless or something.
With cable we had outages constantly, since switching to fiber (different company) we’ve had one (noticed) short outage in a year.
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The key is competition. We currently have a cable company or three and two fiber internet companies in our neighborhood. This is what is needed instead of territorial monopolies.
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Interestingly enough, in NZ we do have territorial monopolies. But ~15 years ago the government made a pot of money available and the rules were something like this:
1. You must use this money to roll out fibre.
2. You must only provide the network, with no services on top of it.
3. You must sell access to that network at the same price regardless of customer (ISP).
This resulted in the biggest traditional phone company breaking itself in two and splitting into a fibre company and an ISP. The two companies are now completely separate.
I've had it for a few years now, I am very happy with it. Switzerland is not high though.
Percentage of fibre connections in total fixed broadband
Percentage of fibre connections in total fixed broadband
Many municipalities have signed an exclusive contact with cable provider, say Comcast. There's no incentive for Comcast to upgrade its infrastructure. Broadband cost and stability is not great in my town, but what am I going to do? Go with Fios? Nope, because my town signed an exclusive contract. The surrounding towns have Fios but not us.
The only thing that we have going for us, is the ability to use 5G from T-Mobile or Verizon wireless. Oddly enough, Comcast rebranded their broadband as "10G" Funny how that works as people are leaving them for 5G they just doubled the number, LOL
Speaking of competition, usually you don’t heat me talking up Texas, there are many issues here, including the politics…
But although the electrical grid has been critiqued as not being able to hack it in electrical supply straining weather, one thing I really like is that residents have the choice of choosing service through multiple electrical companies. The way this works, is that the grid is maintained by one company Center Point, all the electrical suppliers just feed into the grid, and the customer decides who to sign up with. There are always promotions based on a contract of some length, a year or more, and obviously this only works well with true competition, no price fixing among competitors. I’m not prepared to knowlegibly state how good the competition here actually is, but based on appearances there is competition.
My impression is that with a territorial monopoly, you have to rely on competant customer friendly regulation.
Agreed. I realize my Spectrum experience is a matter of pure luck vs. them actually being a good provider. If I could switch to a smaller competitor that actually cared about customer service, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Instead I'm just choosing the smaller dumpster fire...
My understanding this is not the normal situation in the States. Sometime in the past, Texas resisted joining the national grid because they did not want the Feds meddling in their affairs? 🤔
I feel that prices have gone up dramatically since power and gas was deregulated. If you were a restraunt or large building, you could get good contracts for electric and gas supply but its as expensive or more expensive for the every day household. And because the transport side isn't getting profit on the supply side, they have to raise pricing so its a net increase for most people.
I guess the difference is accepting what is offered from a single supplier, versus some variability based on multiple companies. I agree that there might not as much competition as consumers might want.