New fiber optic lines

A few days ago (May 3) I saw some colored tubes sticking out of the ground at the corner of the local post office. I asked inside about them and the lady at the counter hadn't even noticed them. She said they must have been put in during her lunch break, which seems odd considering how long it would take. Anyway, I took some pictures because I knew it must have something to do with fiber optics.

I wondered why the town hadn't been dug up but some Googling revealed that they have horizontal drilling machines for this job.

I took a different route home and noticed that there was some new road paint. In addition to new dashed white lines (not shown), someone had spray-painted MH next to a BellSouth manhole cover.

A manhole cover directly across the street from my yard.

This photo doesn't show the fiberglass junction box nearby, or the fiber optic cable on a utility pole. The cable on the pole leads into the ground near the fiberglass box. There are a bunch of poles carrying fiber optic cable around this part of town. I saw an AT&T truck putting new fiber on the poles several months ago, and the manhole cover has a BellSouth logo so I believe this section is managed by them. With all of this infrastructure available right by my yard, I wonder why AT&T refuses to connect me to their fiber.

Anyway, I don't think it's a coincidence that the paint appeared at the same time as those tubes.

Today I went to check if anything had happened and, to my surprise, there was a call-before-you-dig marker beside a new fiberglass junction box set partway into the sidewalk.

Apparently this is being done by the Palmetto Rural Telephone Co-op, a company I hadn't heard of before.

This is only 1/4 mile from my house so perhaps the neighborhood will be offered better Internet service. I can't imagine why a small-town post office, or any post office for that matter, would need its own dedicated fiber lines.