Poles are more for backwards places and rocky ground (scotland is rocky in parts though), I think it's stepping down and I expect many communities will vote to not allow it, and by that fact alone it will probably be easier to simply use underground tubes with fiber.
And 50Mbit isn't blazingly fast btw, and DSL can do 20Mbit over copper (depending on distance from hubs), so when I divide 50 by 20 I don't end up with '10' either.
Still, it might be healthier and better in regards to interference than WIMAX and such, so perhaps they should use that as argument instead of comparing it to copper.

It's existing infrastructure that works perfectly well. Many newly developed areas have underground utilities, but older construction is often left as-is.

Darren - many parts of Europe and Japan didn't have telegraph (lol) poles as late as 1940, and when I was in Estonia 15 years ago the locals said that the only phones available to most people were cell phones because land line phones had never been installed in most areas.

Some areas skipped over the early tech and went straight to the new stuff when the new stuff came out - but that's because they were poor, backwater dumps (even their cities were backwater, and beautiful!) who couldn't afford the old tech when it came out.

im unsure as what canada is doing with its internet access, but america has one of the the worst role outs in the developed world, japan and some parts of Europe are generations ahead of us Brits, we trully are stuck in the dark ages and because investing is someting our country isnt good at any more its unlikely that situation is going to change any time soon. BT need a firm kick up the arse in my opinion, force them to meet certain targets in exchange for tax breaks or funding.

...North America has been doing it for decades.