You can't make a $23 billion fiber optic omelet without breaking some eggs, and Verizon's FiOS installation was rather sunny side up a few years ago. Subcontractors in Florida particularly, usually dealing with inaccurate city maps, were busting so many sewer and gas lines while burying fiber, Verizon had to stop deployment, overhaul their deployment procedures and skip some neighborhoods entirely.

Last February local Florida news outlets in Sarasota County said the mistakes were getting better, but there were still issues. "To put the damage to sewer and water lines into perspective, excavation usually leads to about 10 cut sewer and water lines in a four-month period. Verizon has cut 19 times that many since Oct. 1," complained the Herald Tribune.

While Verizon is doing a much better job -- especially considering the scale of the project -- there's still some mishaps occurring.

One user e-mails us: "Verizon hired a 3rd party company who, in turn, hired a 3rd party company to install FIBER Cabling throughout Tampa, Florida. While in our neighborhood of Lutz, FL, they managed to create an arc which resulted in setting one house on fire (the entire garage was burned before the fire dept extinguished the flames) and two water-main pipes breaking."

Sometimes decent bandwidth comes at a price. Like say your azaleas.