Vermont uses draft horse to lay cable for Internet access. (Reuters, 6/28/2011)
Excerpt: The horse, 14, and his owner, Claude Desmarais, 66, have been laboring up to seven days a week, over all four seasons, to haul miles of fiber-optic cable and rig it to telecommunications lines.
It is part of Governor Peter Shumlin's vow to get Vermont entirely wired for broadband and cell phones.
The man and animal are indispensable to cable and phone-service provider FairPoint Communications because they easily can access hard-to-reach job sites along country roads, which bulky utility trucks often cannot.
"It just saves so much work - it would take probably 15 guys to do what Fred and Claude can do," said Paul Clancy, foreman of a line crew from FairPoint. "They can pull 5,000 feet of cable with no sweat."
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