in 1981 the (west) german government passed a law that over the next 30 years a nationwide fiber net should be established. sadly, in 1982 when helmut kohl (a conservative) became cancelor these plans were scrapped. instead we got cable tv. one reason was cost of course - cable was 60% cheaper than fiber. another much darker reason was: the public tv back then was, from a conservative standpoint, very leftish (e.g. shows like "monitor" or "panorama"). the conservative leaders couldn't control public tv, but they could open the gates for a nationwide private tv sector. and they did.