It's expensive to install infrastructure, but the costs aren't as high as these companies would have you believe, and further, they've been receiving money for years that was specifically intended to deliver fiber to the home.

There's already so much capacity sunk into the ground you wouldn't need to dig for another decade, you could just upgrade equipment on the end-points. Expensive but a lot less work than getting permits and ripping up roads.

If the rumors about Google are correct, they may be in for a rude awakening.