I know a lot of people that want a FTTH (fiber to the home) Internet connection.  As they should.  While several ISPs continue to milk their existing copper based infrastructure for every last inferior Mbit/sec of bandwidth, the only true way this country is going to achieve a national broadband network capable of supporting the wants and needs of consumers in the coming years is via direct fiber optic connections to each home.

While the FCC has established what can be called nothing more than a mediocre broadband goal (100Mbit/sec to 100 million people in the next 10 years), it’s clear that if the U.S. wants to keep up with the rest of the world both technologically and economically, it’s going to have to commit to FTTH technology.  Without it, American innovation will wilt and businesses that could have spawned here will be established elsewhere.  This is not a good formula for economic recovery or sustained prosperity.

Verizon, having established the nations largest FTTH network, recently announced that its rate of future fiber deployment will be slowing, leaving millions of people with little to no choice in the monopolistic ISP marketplace.  In a study for the Fiber to the Home Council, it was found that only 17 million American homes have access to a direct FTTH Internet connection.  That’s 17 million of the nearly 130 million homes in this country – and the rate of FTTH deployment is scheduled to slow.  And although only 5.8 million homes of those 17 million homes actually receive FTTH based Internet service, that number will only rise as bandwidth intensive products and technologies continue to penetrate our lives.

So for those of you with FTTH access, you may be luckier than you realize…

[Via:  Broadband Reports]