One of my first encounters with fiber optics took place many decades ago in a discussion with the state-run telecommunications company of Italy. The company was about to install a fiber cable; the trench had been prepared., the cable lay alongside the trench, and all that remained was to lower the cable into the trench.

But that was a little scary; glass, after all, is fragile! How do we get the cable into the trench without breaking the fibers? Solution: line up the entire engineering staff alongside the trench; simultaneously they all pick up the cable and lower it into the trench. Mission accomplished.

How times have changed.

In those early days there was a massive push to make and install fiber. And since the fiber itself was relatively cheap, a company might as well put in a few strands of dark fiber. Very soon the country was laced with fiber. I remember being told (likely untrue) that if every telephone call in the country was placed on fiber, and routed through Chicago, the fiber in Chicago would still only be 1/10 used.

And suddenly there was too much fiber. Companies avoided anything that had to do with fiber. There was a glut!

And now things have changed again. There is still an abundance of fiber in the long distance network, but it is the metro network, and The Last Mile, that is in trouble. What happened?

Cloud computing, for one thing. Streaming video for another. And the sudden use of the cellular network for data -- high speed data -- for yet another. And suddenly there's a need for more fiber.

As an aside, we know there is a huge market for spectrum used to connect cellphones to the cellphone towers. There is an equally large demand for landline capacity connecting the cellphone towers to the mobile telephone switching office -- called backhaul. And fiber is the obvious answer.

Who is going to provide this fiber? Oh, there's no shortage of companies in the business. Lots and lots of small companies barely getting along. Others being acquired to gain economy of scale. There were about 14 acquisitions in the industry in 2010, and 45 in the past 4 years.

What comes next? Well, we're certainly not seeing any let up in the push to cloud computing. The public is learning that downloading TV programs and movies is a pretty good deal. And the cellphone used (mostly) by our young people is more for data than for voice. No let up in sight! So we'll likely see more consolidation of fiber optic firms, and usage of fiber that is ever-increasing.

What is your experience with this? Tell your fellow readers now!