The race to provide the consumer with high bandwidth is a very big deal in Corporate America these days. One of the problems is that traditional communication companies, like AT & T were saddled with old infrastructure, twister pair and the like and so have a lot to rip out and start again.

For years, Comcast has argued against the deployment of fiber optics so that they can continue to dominate the Coaxial cable provider. To date, they have been highly successful:





Ultimately, this situation as measured in March 2012 remains the same and has gotten a little worse for DSL. Consumers mostly seem to care about perceived speed.



And yes Your government does keep track of all of this

The Google Fiber Project potentially greatly threatens traditional communication companies.