Yep. I honestly don't get the waiting either, unless they're really trying to milk all they can out of the current internet wires- knowing they have no competition to worry about to have to upgrade everything.
Wire as we currently have it will never be near as good as fiber. However; I am fortunate enough to live in a "flagship" location for a major ISP. Down is between 100-150, but they still keep the UP side much lower. How quickly I have forgotten what a 2-5 meg connection (or worse) was like! I have communicated with a "bud" in Japan that has ~250 in both directions on his fiber. Plus they never get bogged down during peak. Just saying!
No, it can't but when it comes to Internet, TV and Phone for consumers, current speeds are more than enough (200 Mb/s). But it's not about that, it's about the underlying tech. With fiber, all appliances (router, DVR, DECT phone) are connected to the main fiber modem, so when something goes wrong, it's game over. With cable you can plug in the DVR to any wall, it's separated from the modem/router. So no need to pull any wires to the modem (I would not rely on Powerline Adapters), and if the modem dies, TV keeps working. Also, if the the DVR tuner dies, you can still receive about 30 channels (analog/DVB-C signal). This is not the case with fiber, because most big fiber providers offer no "free to air" DVB-C channels.
Well, I've never had a modem die on me. And if it mattered that much, I'd have multiple connections, and backup modems. I have CAT6 where I need it. And I have no interest in TV. What I can do locally vs on hosted servers depends on my uplink. But local stuff is far more securable, and it costs less. So I'm always looking for larger pipes
OK, I see. BTW, I forgot to mention, that fiber uses IPTV, this means that people who use a 50 Mbps connection will loose 10 to 20 Mbps from their internet speed, this does not happen with cable which uses DVB-C. Another drawback: fiber providers do not offer CI+ cards, so if the DVR tuner has problems, you're out of luck. With cable, you still have access to 100+ channels, with the digital tuner of your own TV. I know that you don't care about this, but I still wanted to point out the differences. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Interface
My DSL R/Modem Netgear 7550 with ATT seems to have problems from what i have read on sites. Any good USB Mobile Sticks out there that work good. People don't seem to like them that much either.
Either you've been fortunate or I've had some very bad luck with them. I'm on my 5th DSL modem and my 3rd VOIP modem in less than 10 years.
OK, so maybe I was exasperating. But I've never had one last less than five years, as I recall. And I tend to change ISPs more often than that. Also, given that they've lasted so long, I tend to accumulate backups.