said by McBane:An ONT upgrade usually does mean moving you to a new OLT PON card at the CO. I think what you meant to say is pocket change compared to having to rip out the whole cable plant and replace it with fiber. Since the fiber is there already, it's cheaper to upgrade the ONT/OLT than it is to upgrade the whole system.
I was responding to Splicer about his comment on the ONT upgrades being fairly expensive.
Comparing them relatively, a customer ONT upgrade say from BPON to a GPON ONT is a cheap option in the long term. While a $50,000+ PON card upgrade at the central office isn't cheap, it still provides bandwidth breathing room for future FIOS plan introductions(e.g. Quantum, etc). The most painful option is to re-do the whole path from residence to CO.