Very interesting. Jared Mauch, Getting Fiber to my Town, became his own ISP. Connected directly to the nearest fiber Internet Exchange.
Particularly important was the lessons learned from the county notification, stop-work order. The conduits need a tracing wire run through them, surveying and flagging right-of-way was required, and communicating exactly when they’re working. Lots of good reasons.
And, now you know how the pros find utility cable that they mark down on the ground with paint, they use an electric signal through that tracing wire that I’m guessing effectively functions as an RF antenna, then they can sense and match the signal strength.
How was the project funded? Pre-payment of customers up front, to help offset cost, willing to put in $5000 each. Total construction cost ended up running around $13,000, most of the cost being the digging for the conduit (~$90,000). Muach bought a Ditch Witch directional digging machine manufactured in the ’90s, borrowed a cable plower from the local Wireless ISP, and built his own fiber blower to run the fiber through the conduit.
Fiber splicing… yes it’s actually quite comparable to the challenges of punch-down termination of copper Ethernet cables.
20200912/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXJgvy3mEg