Fiber has been around for a very long time and has the highest capacity bandwidth of any technology available. But let's be real, wireless is the technology that everyone in the world is excited about. If you could buy wireless service that would allow you to take your TV, telephone and computer anywhere within your home, car, city, state or country versus having to be connected to your fiber cable at home, which would you choose? Personally, I would choose wireless.
Wireless is also a much easier technology to provide to the masses (no running of cables), especially rural. Anyone heard of WiMAX (75MB/sec), 3G and 4G networks? These broadband wireless technologies are here today, advancing very rapidly, and will compete with fiber-to-the home for services. Don't get me wrong, wireless can't compare with the bandwidth capacity that fiber offers today, but as a consumer we don't buy gigabit bandwidth for our home, we buy available services like phone, TV, Internet, etc. ' services that we currently have. So, I think we should wait a short while to see what type of new services become available on what infrastructure. We can buy fiber for our homes at a later date if necessary, and as a bonus for being patient, the technology will probably cost less. The idea of fiber to homes in Lafayette is exciting, but so is the concept of Lafayette being a "MetroZone" for portable broadband wireless! Which one do you think will be more attractive in five years? My point exactly.