95% of the US only having access to wired broadband via coaxial cable is more than just an inconvenience to switching ISPs. Charter and other coaxial cable ISPs know their broadband customers have nowhere to go.
95% of the US only having access to wired broadband via coaxial cable is more than just an inconvenience to switching ISPs. Charter and other coaxial cable ISPs know their broadband customers have nowhere to go.
This 95% figure is clearly disingenuous handwaving.
Briefly looking at California >= 250/25 residential service for cable[1] and fiber[2] shows substantial overlap.
...and Florida cable[3] v. fiber[4].
...and New York cable[5] v. fiber[6].
[1] https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/area-summary/fixed?version=dec2...
[2] https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/area-summary/fixed?version=dec2...
[3] https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/area-summary/fixed?version=dec2...
[4] https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/area-summary/fixed?version=dec2...
[5] https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/area-summary/fixed?version=dec2...
[6] https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/area-summary/fixed?version=dec2...
One is if the housing development is ~2010 or newer, and they installed fiber in the underground utilities during initial build. The other is super old neighborhoods with overheard wires that maybe get wired up.
Otherwise, any area with underground utilities built before 2010 is very, very unlikely to have fiber to the home.
I can see that it would be very hard to bring fiber to places with underground utilities that don't already have it.
In my neighborhood and adjacent communities within a roughly 5-mile radius, utilities are all underground, but the pattern that emerges in these parts when attempting to predict whether a community will have fiber to the home or not appears to be some combination of existing easements/city right-of-way, relative community affluence, and housing density.
For example, AT&T brought fiber to my neighborhood likely because they could easily bury it along the city's right-of-way where not even HOA radicals can stop them. The more affordable townhome community to the immediate west didn't get the same infra though, despite there being comparable townhome communities less than a mile away surrounding a regional park that did. Similarly, the expensive homes within a gated golf country club to the immediate north of us doesn't get fiber despite the affluence living in that community, but the deed restricted community outside the gates to the immediate west which shares the same name did, while the mixed single- and multi-family community to the south of that community didn't. The homes in this area are anywhere between mid-80s to late-90s construction.