A well-designed network will be able to support different applications in the future, including those not well supported by either today’s ‘telecom’ or ‘Internet’, or other applications not even conceived yet. The network should thus be provisioned at a low layer as practical. The most important technological consideration should be that it is flexible.
Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON), Ethernet Passive Optical Network (Ethernet), and other shared media, are inflexible; they do not easily support separate physical-layer paths to different service providers. Wavelength Division Multiplexing PON (WDM-PON) is a bit better, and lumped PONs are at least halfway there, but unlikely to do the trick in rural areas (if those are included). We should not try to do everything over ‘Ethernet’ as if today’s electronics were the answer for 10 years out.
It is critical that the network will be designed on the wholesale and retail requirements mentioned above. The network should certainly not be designed the other way around!