"...can't I pay a regular ADSL type service charge?"
Yes. Move to Canada within the service boundaries of Bell Aliant.
Our previous boring old POTS (plain old telephone service) and 1.4 Mbps ADSL was right about $100 per month. 1.4 Mbps is pretty useless these days. That was as high as they could go over 4km of copper.
Same company, Bell Aliant FibreOP has now rolled out fiber, even to our neighbourhood in the forest, and thus offers a vastly better telephone (over fiber) service, with tonnes of features including emailed voice mails, and basic 50 / 30 Mbps Internet in a bundle for ... right about $100 per month.
Essentially zero difference in the price. You read that right. Better, faster, and no more expensive. Installation fee was $49. No contract. You pay another $15 to get 80 / 30 Mbps and yet another $15 to get 175 / 30 Mbps (which is nice). So about $130 a month for phone and 175 Mbps, but that's their top offering. Most people are happy with 50 Mbps.
The financial secret sauce is that they're now able to offer 'Cable TV' (fiber optic) service. Imagine that; a telephone company offering TV, thus chasing down their competition, the local Cable company. It also potentially roughly doubles the cash flow of their company (another $100 a month per customer). This is the duh-obvious secret that finances the whole system.
It will take many more years to get fiber run out to the distant corners. But since each run can reportedly span 40 km, it's pretty easy to roll trucks. They're so fast that they disappear down the road in an hour.
Sorry to be ranting on about this, but it important to announce that FTTH is indeed a cracked nut. Technically and financially. Problem solved. Just needs time to permeate.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
