The business of laying fibre-optic cable, both terrestrially and under the sea, used to be the preserve of incumbent telecoms operators sharing the burden of capital-intensive projects.

ECONOMIST: Booms and busts

Dozens of companies are laying fiber-optic cable around the world, leading some to talk of a looming bandwidth glut.

FORBES: A fiber niche is nice

Starting in the 1990s, telecommunications companies spent billions of dollars laying fiber-optic cable all over the country.

NPR: Broadening the Reach of Broadband

One of his early jobs was laying television cable for Cablevision.

ECONOMIST: Stand and deliver

Because no electrical reconfiguring or rewiring is necessary, networking can be delivered to remote areas of a house without expensive and inconvenient drilling and cable-laying.

ENGADGET: Cisco unveils Linksys HomePlug AV Powerline solutions, converts outlets into network connection points

You can regard all this as laying it on a bit thick - nobody ever mistook Mr Cable for a ray of sunshine - or unvarnished economic realism.

BBC: UK Politics

None of those vulnerable relays high atop the Rockies, and suddenly no more need for laying cable on the ocean floor.

FORBES: The Trials Of Amory Houghton Jr.