As a result of the first CenturyLink started rolling out (expensive) fiber, and after the second CL started offering Prism TV. So I think most of the blocking issues have been fixed now. Remains to be seen if/when Google Fiber will reconsider Seattle.
I'm in Seattle, and I have gigabit (www.gowaveg.com) in my apartment. It's $80/month, and I get ~15ms latency to AWS West (Oregon). It's wonderful.
Wave G has an interesting model - they mainly hook up apartment buildings (it used to be called "Condo Internet"). They are experimenting with hooking up houses on the street as well - they're doing fiber to the home in the Eastlake area, but I don't know if that's working out yet.
I love them. When we moved to Seattle we only looked at apartments that had Wave G service. I'm going to be very sad when we move out of Seattle and have to return to normal Internet. But so far this model is encouraging, if non-inclusive to people outside the nice apartments.
One of the biggest losses moving out of my old First Hill apartment was that they had CondoInternet and where I was going they didn't. I don't even care about the throughput, it was just incredibly reliable.
I saw trucks working on all the poles up and down my street. Sure enough, a month or so later their site showed my address eligible for gigabit. Goodbye Comcast!
Then they fixed the TV franchise issues: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/seattle-city-council-approves-l...
As a result of the first CenturyLink started rolling out (expensive) fiber, and after the second CL started offering Prism TV. So I think most of the blocking issues have been fixed now. Remains to be seen if/when Google Fiber will reconsider Seattle.