Fiber as a different kind of weapon?

Interesting analysis by Brian Santo at CED today (http://www.cedmagazine.com/article.aspx?id=147702) about how ILECs decommission their copper lines and what the impact might be on competition. You see, when an ILEC gets approval from the FCC to replace Copper (which must be resold -unbundled- to the CLEC) with Fiber (which has no such imperative) ... guess what: They do just that.
Now the CLECs are worried that, were this tactic used aggressively, it might diminish their capacity (via leased copper) in specific markets.

I've long been a sceptic about Fiber-to-the-home... not because it isn't great service (I hear it is!), but because the price seems so high. (Wall Street shares my view... Every conference call is littered with questions akin to "how are you going to make back the thousands of dollars of Capex for each home passed by fiber? Is there really that much demand for pay-per-view? Aren't you inviting a commodity-price-war with the Cablecos?)

But, alas, this might explain it: What if the real goal is to decommission copper? Then "Capex per home passed" is really an investment in "home-not-passed-by-CLEC".

Pretty, pretty smart.