http://www.cracked.com/article_19268_5-ways-your-telecom-company-screwing-you_p2.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fiber"Dark Fiber
What if we told you that there was an entire world of possibilities under your very feet, right this second? No, we're not talking about the mole people's domain over our Earth's core. We're talking about dark fiber -- a network of fiber-optic cable built in the late '90s and early '00s that's capable of speeds hundreds or thousands of times faster than your current Internet connection.
So what's this expansive network of ultrafast cabling used for? Basically, jack shit. That's why it's called dark fiber. The majority of it is unused. It's just there, taunting you and the rest of America with its untapped potential.
The thing is, before 1996, telecommunication companies were regulated by the government. But with the Internet and new technology on the rise, the government decided they didn't understand shit about it all and mulled letting the telecoms regulate themselves. As a bargaining chip, telecoms promised anything and everything they could, including a fiber-optic network that would stretch across America, delivering at least 45MBps speeds (a number like that was incomprehensible back then). So lawmakers pretty much agreed out of hand. They passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and handed the keys for the nation's data infrastructure over to the telecoms.
Eventually, all the networks were built (using about $25 billion in tax breaks), but after the dot-com crash, several of the companies underwent mergers and bankruptcies, killing them off before they had a chance to set up the necessary hardware to interact with the fiber-optic lines. So who stepped in to buy them up? Big companies like AT&T and Verizon, who had a vested interest in keeping copper wires around for a little while longer (which they used for their cheaper-to-maintain DSL and telephone services).
Only recently have they exploited copper as far as they could and begun offering consumer-level fiber-optic television, phone and Internet services instead. As for the pieces of unused fiber that huge telecoms don't own, much is being bought up by Google, which is attempting to start its own fiber-optic Internet service. So we may finally start seeing fiber-optic Internet in the next few years, but we'll still be buying access from massive corporations. Progress!"
