Consider yourself lucky then. You might view it differently if you are in an area that is yet to have fiber. Here in AZ, Tempe and Scottsdale have it but nowhere else. Cox put gigablast/fiber in only in response to Google Fiber and has subsequently stopped after Google slowed, so maybe we have different experiences. It is very frustrating. You are in a very small state that is near D.C. which is one of the heavy focuses of fiber (New York, DC, CA, WA, etc). If you move to an area where it isn't as prevalent, you might not be so pro-broadband/ISP providers.
> You can't "agree to disagree" about facts. You're throwing out assertions that are simply false (e.g. that companies agreed to deploy fiber in return for being granted monopolies).
I should have said semi-monopolies like I did initially. In many cases this is true simply by being the one to run the lines and discouraging competition. In many, many cases we only have one provider for most of the US. Providers are also heavily against municipal broadband and other competitive services, only Google Fiber really scared them into increasing rollouts.
I can agree to disagree, many of the things I have posted back up my main point that fiber rollout is slow, there have been lies and incomplete rollouts and it is holding us back in the US. According to you broadband/ISPs are doing exactly what they can and pushing the limits of capabilities and innovating like they did in the 90s. That may be the case in Maryland in your area, I have a differing opinion and frankly I have never met someone so pro-broadband/ISP/Verizon unless they were investors or worked there. I do hope broadband/ISP providers return to their innovative glory of the 90s and early 00s. They are failing in that regard today.
> Do you have fiber from Verizon? If not maybe take a step back.
My parents have had FiOS for more than a decade, and I've had it for several years in four different houses and apartments. I always get 5-10% over the advertised speed (even during peak times) and my ping times are similar to the Cogent business internet we have at work.
> They have failed so far, it is 2017 and barely anyone in the US has fiber or gigabit.
About 11% of all U.S. broadband connections are fiber: http://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/oecdbroadbandportal.htm. 25% of the country can get it: http://broadbandnow.com/Fiber (FiOS's uptake rate is less than 40%). We're doing better than most of the other big OECD countries. Canada is at 8%, France at 6.5%, Germany, Italy, and Austria are under 3%. Spain, South Korea, and Japan are the only big OECD countries doing better than us.
Moreover, the overall statistic ignores the fact that broadband is largely a state level issue, and deployment varies a lot by state. E.g. Maryland, where I live, has about the same population and population density as Switzerland, and has similar fiber availability (over 60%).
> A decade ago, we wrote about how Verizon had made an agreement in Pennsylvania in 1994 that it would wire up the state with fiber optic cables to every home in exchange for tax breaks equalling $2.1 billion.
There was never any "tax breaks": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8401102. (Read the thread--the guy who came up with the $400 billion and $2.1 billion numbers explains how the number is based on calculating "excess profits" compared to regulated rates).