Why AT&T's U-Verse Expansion Will Be Much Smaller Than You Think → Re: I am not the most up-to-date on upgrading UVerse

What if Verizon had used its rights as a utility provider, where they already provided "regulated" POTS, to take the fiber-optic cable to all the premises on a city block during one short period of time? They could have rolled a few trucks and gotten all the premises on several city blocks in one day. They would have only been going to the exterior wall, and probably could have terminated the fiber-optic cable at or very near the existing NID. That would have reduced the final connection and installation costs for those who signed up for actual service.

It doesn't happen in "one short period of time".
It doesn't involve "a few" trucks.
It is a massive event.

And that's just to wire to the premise.
Wiring the building is another massive undertaking.

Why should they go through all the effort and expense, if in the end, the customers aren't willing to buy the service?

My bad. After your comment I did the math based on a standard Chicago city block from my childhood. There are approximately 8 blocks per mile with 50 houses per block. A 8 block segment would comprise 400 houses. The alley between the houses holds the telephone poles. I only need to take the fiber from the alley to the exterior wall. The fiber between the alley poles is already done. Assuming 6 hours per shift per day of actual wiring time, that leaves one house wired per minute for one wiring crew. Obviously not enough time. Increase that to a more reasonable 30 minutes, and you need about 32 wiring crews to do 400 houses. That would be 4 crews per block. My statement of a few trucks was inaccurate.

I still think it would be worth it to have a capped off fiber optic cable at every premises or house. If a request for service came in, the technicians would not have to do the big labor of running the fiber from the alley. In its most basic form for telephone and internet, the technician could install the Uverse NID and then connect into the existing telephone line infrastructure of the house. VDSL2 technology should then allow for 100Mbps symmetrical service over the typically under 300 meter in house wiring runs.

If they wanted to, they could do what Verizon did and use MoCA. MoCA is fast enough to support IPTV over coax, so they would have a gentle upgrade path. However, to get to gigabit in-house speeds, you need CAT 5.