Fiber broadband: Is it a waste with 5G and Elon Musk's satellites on the horizon?

When certain technologies catch up to fiber broadband's gigabit speeds in the next few years it will lull us into thinking that the telecom companies that spent a fortune on fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) only ended up with a short-term advantage of 2-3 years. But make no mistake, the companies that are investing in FTTP today are likely to be the leaders in 2025 when the next wave of technologies -- especially artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and mixed reality -- will demand much more robust connections from both the home and the office.

It's also going to be critical to the future of the smart home and the smart city, since many of today's most connected cities across the world have determined that laying fiber is the foundation that many of tomorrow's most connected services will be built upon. The big question is whether Google Fiber, AT&T Fiber, Verizon FiOS, or any of their competitors will have the stomach to stay the course on FTTP.