”The transition to fiber is already well underway,”...

"The transition to fiber is already well underway,” Verizon’s David Young said in a blog post Friday (http://vz.to/1si8513). About 70 percent of Verizon’s footprint will soon be “fiberized,” said the vice president-federal regulatory affairs. Only 6 percent of homes in those areas still get service over copper lines, and keeping the copper network running is very expensive, he said. “Unfortunately, there are some who for a variety of reasons are trying to put the brakes on fiber upgrades, and by extension, fiber deployment,” Young said. “They think that the old copper networks should be kept indefinitely.” No existing telco will be able to invest in fiber if it’s forced to keep the old “redundant” and “costly” copper network up too, he said. “The social benefits of a transition to fiber must outweigh the preference that a few holdouts might have for a more familiar technology,” Young said, urging policymakers to be “courageous."