A realistic estimate for building a 100Mbps nation

One of the challenges advocates of a 100Mbps Nation have faced has been the lack of an accurate estimate for what it will cost to achieve our goal. The FCC suggested that achieving a universal 100Mbps Nation would cost $350 billion, but some recent calculations by Dave Russell of Calix have shown that we can achieve a Full Fiber Nation, which should be able to enable a 1Gbps Nation and beyond, for less than that.

Before getting into his specific numbers, though, I want to point out something that he did that I think makes a lot of sense and helps frame this discussion in a more realistic way...