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[Joseph Sinclair]

Actually, fiber can be run anywhere up to the building service entrance (the box on the wall outside).  Look into the FIOS services available in some other parts of the country for an (incredibly customer, and 'net, un-friendly) example.
Fiber could easily be run inside the building too, but the the customer premises equipment (CPE) is all designed to expect coax connections, so it's highly unlikely you'll see fiber inside buildings anytime soon (then again, I'm not all that good at predicting the future, it could happen next week).
The big problem in getting fiber closer to the end user in the US is the huge amount of installed fiber, and the stupidity with which it was installed.  Rather than install conduit, which would facilitate repair and replacement, nearly all cable (of all types, video, voice, and 'net) in the US is directly buried in the ground, so it has to be dug up to be replaced or repaired, and digging up streets (most of it is underneath streets and sidewalks) is insanely expensive (a single segment ranges from $10,000 for a small fix on a small street to over $1 million for a full block-long segment on a major street or highway in a major city center).
Since the cable companies have all decided that there's no *increase* in profit from upgrading networks, they don't bother to upgrade unless a given segment is causing too many maintenance problems, and then they only upgrade if they can't cheaply repair it (one of the reasons my connection drops whenever the outside temp exceeds 105, the lines are junk, and Cox won't replace them until analog video starts failing routinely).
Even when these companies do upgrade lines, they still take the stupid approach of directly burying the cables, since it's cheaper.  They never seem to comprehend that paying a bit more now (conduit-bury is about 3 times the cost of direct-bury) will save immensely the next time the technology causes major changes (not to mention the ongoing savings in maintenance and improved service quality).

Michael Havens wrote:
>>From the way I understand fibre can only be used as the trunk line. In other 
> words we are still going to have RG59/6/11 running into houses.	
> 
> On Sunday 27 May 2007 10:18 pm, Michael Sammartano wrote:
>> RG-59 is still used, but it is not a good thing for Hi Speed cable, digital
>> and HDTV. To much resistance from what I understand, which increases signal
>> loss.  RG-6 is the "minimum" requirement for Hi Speed internet and
>> digital/HDTV. Cox uses RG-6 and fiber optics beyond that. I am not sure
>> what part of town the "problem" are still in, but there was a period of
>> time that the areas of town with overhead lines and real old burried lines
>> were suffering the most. When Cox rid itself of @home, they tried to change
>> from Cisco Routers to Juniper. After several weeks of issues, they went
>> back to Cisco. The only issues I am aware of now are the old wires which
>> are being repaired until they can be replaced with fiber. ---- Jeremy
>> Miller <jmminaz at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
<<BIG SNIP>>