We sat there drinking lemonade, like an old married couple, watching the kids passing on bicycles, a squirrel scampering along a telephone wire.

NEWYORKER: Miracle Polish

Yet there is clearly a huge opportunity, given the gap between the quality of Internet access most Americans enjoy at work (through high-speed direct connections) and at home (through a copper telephone wire).

ECONOMIST: Cable television

At one point, he tried to call the Poxley volunteer fire department, but the creosote pole that supported the telephone wire had already gone up like a torch, taking his service away.

NEWYORKER: Idols

As a conductor of light beams, a given volume of the fibers can carry many times as many impulses as a similar volume of copper wire, and may eventually obsolete the latter in telephone communications--as well as in computers, aircraft and for many military purposes.

FORBES: The Trials Of Amory Houghton Jr.

On an out-of-town trip Carlsbad state senator Joseph Gant Jr. read a wire- service story -- by chance -- about the Lyons fiasco and got on the telephone to other Carlsbad influentials.

FORBES: How Carlsbad got WIPPed