Heavy machines

There was some noise of heavy machinery working just outside our gates the other day, so I went to see what was going on.   They were laying fibre-optic cables.

I remember, some 35-odd years ago, doing the rounds of the university admissions.  One of the candidates was Southampton, where they were doing advanced research on fibre optics, and the senior bod there was enthusing about how they could now get several tens of yards of useful performance.   We have come a long way.

The machine that was making all the noise was a trench digger/cable layer.   It would dig a trench, roll the cables into it, and a separate digger would come along behind it to fill it in.  One of the guys was marking the street tarmac where the phone line, and separately, the water supply, ran across it.   He came up to me and asked me where the electricity supply cables ran.  Hey, I don't know, and neither did he.   We didn't get cut off though, so I assume the cables come up the hill from the valley rather than across the road.

I asked, some time ago, about how we might get a fibre service delivered to our place.   Our ex-mayor, who worked in the telecomms sector, said that the fibre would be strung along the telegraph poles that carry our phone line.  So I'm not sure how we'll be connected to this new cable that runs underground.