Not sure how these choices are tough to be honest. If the entire country isn't economical to fibre up at this time do what makes sense and has a business case for FTTH, do what has a business case for FTTC, the rest do as and when it makes sense.
It's a bummer but nowhere in the world has universal fibre coverage and those countries that do have generous fibre coverage have government cash / incentives behind them.
I do wonder why areas without mains gas / sewage are not commented on as lacking these while it's a 'tough choice' to provide fibre or not. Already the whole competition / open access factor has meant some of BT's prices for wholesale access are artificially high and they have spent years coming up with plans for wholesale fibre access to meet the approval of Ofcom and other parties.
Some decisions do indeed have to be made. Do we want fibre and healthy wholesale based competition or do we still want to be connected to exchange based copper to preserve some perceived parity in the market, keep exchange based LLU alive and 'enhance consumer choice'. One sticking point at least was that ISPs wanted to be able to unbundle strands of fibre on BT's network. BT now have wholesale products prepared and approved for trial for Ebbsfleet, so we'll see where they go from there. It's not pleasant for those who have made big investment in LLU however I imagine they were always expecting this just a question of when.
Unless someone else can step up to the plate BT carry a lot of power now, the carrot being FTTP/C and them being the only company with the financial muscle and will to do it... under the right regulatory environment of course.
Quote:
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The BSG estimates that getting fibre to the cabinets near the first 58% of households could cost about £1.9bn.
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BT's spend on 21CN alone, their IP/VoIP core upgrade is £2 billion / year and rising out of an annual CapEx budget of £3bn.