Comment by mrb

Not only cat6 or cat7 wouldn't have worked at a length of 1000 feet (one would need repeaters, which can and did fail, see my initial post), but it wouldn't have saved much money. The bulk of the cost was in the labor to hand-dig a trench through rocky soil while avoiding multiple buried utilities. Also, cat6 and cat7 would have been slower at 1 Gbps (10 Gbps is impossible at 1000 feet with repeaters). My fiber cable has 12 strands of singlemode fiber and each can achieve 100 Gbps with the right SFP transceiver (1200 Gbps total). Of course I don't need that much bandwidth, but it's a plus to have this potential.

There is basically no reason whatsoever to stick with cat6 or cat7 at such lengths. Fiber beats copper in weight, speed, and reliability.

The whole project was worth it. This allowed me to install video intercoms at two gates, and many security cameras, which is what buyers want at such a property (it's a multi-million dollar estate, and I might want to sell it next year).

If the line were to be damaged somehow, I would need to call my contractors to splice and repair it. But I don't expect it to happen. In fact the line shouldn't need any maintenance over the next 20+ years. Heavy-duty conduit. Heavy-duty weather-proof enclosures for the patch panels. Etc. It's all the same stuff built by the same contractors who build fiber infra for ISPs.