Executive Summary
The debate over the best infrastructure to deliver fixed last-mile broadband service in the 21st century is settled, and fiber is the undisputed winner. Fiber-to-the-home deployments are a better option for consumers today, and they are the only option that will allow expansive, efficient upgrades to America’s networks for a generation.
This is not to say that no broadband technology will ever surpass fiber-optics, but we know the limitations of existing technologies in use today. Currently, the alternatives to fiber face headwinds that fiber does not, including limited bandwidth, attenuation, noise, upstream/downstream asymmetry, and latency. While other means of delivering high-speed broadband are not too far behind fiber right now, the properties of each technology will allow fiber deployments to scale up quickly and easily while copper and wireless broadband networks will struggle to keep up. If we install fiber-to-the-home connections today, we’ll be able