[AdamJacobMuller]

City or state?

City: just take a walk through manhattan and in a block or two look at the giant open-pit excavation with a 200-year-old morass of undocumented infrastructure under the street. This is before you even try to run fiber up to units in buildings which were built before electricity was standard. I am hardly saying it can't be done, simply that it is not as easy as density makes it seem.

State: the exact opposite problem -- just drive two hours north of NYC and (if you're not still in manhattan) you'll be in some fantastic areas of the state, but, the exact opposite problem exists.

Of note, I do think both of these problems are solvable and we should fundamentally solve them. Just anybody who thinks it's easy or cheap to do so is being myopic. If spent wisely, could be a very useful investment of our money, however.

[SpaceNugget]

Do you think the wilds two hours north of NYC are more or less difficult for laying fibre lines than between homes literally in the alps? 60% of switzerland is alps. Not exactly a cake walk for infrastructure development.

And why would they need open pit excavation for FTTH in NYC? Are there not existing trenches and under-street ducting for cables already in most of the city? Surely there are going to be some tricky areas but how to the other utilities like phones and electric work on their cabling?