et share was rising, from 16.3% to 34.4%, but cable retained 63.2% of the broadband market [14]. And whither FTTH? By the end of 2003, not quite 20,000 homes were connected nationwide. Although regula- tors, telephone companies, and especially equipment makers fretted about the failure of FTTH, they were perhaps blindsided by the success of HFC, which delivered the bulk of the benefits at far lower cost. Some sectors of the industry, especially fiber-optic and equipment manu- facturers, may have genuinely fretted about the failure of FTTH to catch on. Predictions made in the 1980s had it widespread by the turn of the cen- tury, but that did not happen. HFC cable was one reason; ADSL was another. And very-high-speed DSL (VDSL) was on the horizon, already catching in Asia (where local loops were shorter). So regulatory efforts to encourage FTTH were, in a sense, a form of "industrial policy" that violated the free- market principles that these same regulators ostensibly held dear. FTTH was a technological bridge too far, a leap that could not be cost justified when less- costly, more evolutionary technologies kept stretching the capabilities of both twisted-pair and cable plant. Although it was almost undeniable that FTTH would eventually happen, betting on its widespread success proved to be a bad idea. Regulatory efforts to promote it were perhaps akin to a government pro- gram to ensure that your dog really did get enough cheese. Even if you did not have a dog [15]. Cable companies' success in serving residential markets did not translate to a significant share of the business market; for that, the traditional CAPs remained the primary source of alternative broadband facilities. This was largely because cable systems did not even go into many business areas. Cable was designed for home entertainment, not business. And the bandwidth characteris- tics of HFC were not optimized for business use. Fiber to the home was not nec- essary, but fiber loops were a natural for business locations. A single mid-sized business