I think we won't see Fiber in California. They will use wireless technology to transfer data from final optical fiber node to homes. That way it won't need a lot of digging.
Wireless data is getting faster and faster, so it should be possible to transfer gigabit per second data over wireless transmitters.
Right now my iPhone's LTE is faster than my home Comcast cable connection. I hope wireless gets cheaper and faster to replace Comcast in future
There's also DOCSIS 3.1 on the horizon for cable providers. It will allow for a quick and dramatic increase in download speeds over existing cable HFC infrastructure. All the big market cable ISPs will be offering 1Gbit/sec download speeds in the next 2-3 years at least in some competitive markets. Within 3-5 years it will be pretty widespread. Within 5-7 years it will be fairly universal to have multi-gigabit/sec broadband just about everywhere in the country that is serviced by cable ISPs.
Wireless data is getting faster and faster in terms of providing what would previously be considered massive bandwidth but generally the latency still sucks for things like fast-paced online gaming. I still want fiber.
Over in SF, I have Webpass, which uses wireless data to deliver Internet to the building. I consistently get around 100/100 with <5ms ping (and that's for $50 a month!)
So yea, wireless data has gotten really really good.
Mind you, that's not LTE. It's microwave wireless... so a different type of wireless tech.
Wireless data is getting faster and faster, so it should be possible to transfer gigabit per second data over wireless transmitters.
Right now my iPhone's LTE is faster than my home Comcast cable connection. I hope wireless gets cheaper and faster to replace Comcast in future