C-Spire just ran a fiber cable across my front yard with no ditching.....a guy placed a device on the ground which sends a signal into the ground to guide the tunneling unit and that unit is pulling the cable as it goes...all of that is done between 6 and 8 feet below surface so no danger to any existing lines across my yard....about every 100 yards someone's yard does get a square hole dug so that the next section of cable can be attached for the process to continue...that's how I know the depth of the tunnel. Back in the day, every yard would have had a big ditch dug across it..
That's what I referred to a boring in my post -- or more precisely, directional boring. I oversaw U-Verse implementation in several south MS counties for awhile, so I'm familiar with the process...
In general, the device you see sitting on top of the ground isn't a guide, but an orientation reader which transmits back to the operator on the boring rig wirelessly allowing him to "drive" the machine accurately. It gives angle of the rod(+- degrees altitude), depth, and head orientation(this is how it "steers" different directions). In general, the box man has to dot the ground directly above the head sonne in order to determine left/right and physically advise the operator on where to point it. Common minimum depth for a trunk line fiber(especially one that is bored) is 48" or greater. In general, it's 6-8ft deep when bored -- and 4ft when plowed. The average boring maching for these jobs carry 400 ft of pipe. That's why it's "dug up" every so far. In general, they "pull back" orange pipe -- and adjoin them at full depth, thus allowing the fiber to run unbroken for long distances underground(1500 feet between "hand holes" is common).
What CSpire is talking about doing here is infinitely more complex than a mainline fiber installation like happened across your yard, which generally happens along county/state right-of-way. What cspire is actually doing, I've only been involved with doing once -- in Beau Pre in Natchez. It's a total nightmare for an installation contractor. What they are talking about doing is bringing a 1 pair fiber optic "phone line" to every house(or AT LEAST to every terminal) identical to existing phone lines. The difference is, any average joe can splice a "cut" 2 pair copper phone service back together and be hunky dory -- and ATT routinely only buries them 2-4" deep because it's such an easy fix. Fiber is a WHOLE different game. A "cut" fiber requires enough "slack" to get it inside their clean room trailers in order to splice(it's a process that's basically equivalent to glass or plastic welding). So, in other words, if your sprinkler people cut your fiddle fiber to your house, you are looking at them having to bring out their splice trailer, bring out a track hoe, dig up your yard 25-30 ft(AT LEAST) in both directions in order to gain enough "slack" to splice in a new section inside the trailer. Then, they've got to bury that excess 50-60 ft in the trenches that have already been made, keeping in mind that fiber is basically thin glass -- and can't be "bent" sharply. In other words, it's a nightmare scenario that neither you, nor the company, want to face. For that reason, they bury that stuff DEEP on your private property. Deep enough that you never hit it with normal digging activity. I think min depth in Beau Pre was 24" on private and 48" on ROW. I'd imagine CSpire would employ similar minimum standards.
Market value for a contractor of C-Spire's size is $2-3/ft for plowing and $5-8/ft for boring. Hence why they are probably going to do as much plowing as humanly possible, particularly on private property. A plow at 2 ft from your house to a main line = a total nightmare for the installer. You get deeper 4-6" on private, you run into a ton of problems...