The amount of cabled fiber shipped last year topped even that in the heady days of 2001, according to CRU Analysis. Deployment in 2007 was driven by local telecom applications in Europe as well as new backbones and cellular infrastructure in Asia. Fiber deployment in North America was actually down 1% last year, allowing China to consume more optical cable than the U.S. for the first time since 2002. (Less than 23 million kilometers were deployed in the U.S. and 1.5 million in Canada.)

Subterranean fiber deployment nearly quadrupled last year to just under 800,000 kilometers, and it could top 1 million this year, CRU said.

Fiber is much more local, of course, than it was during the telecom bubble. Nearly 40% of the U.S. fiber deployed in 2000 was for long-haul networks; last year it was 2%. And there’s another important difference, said Patrick Fay, analyst for KMI Research: “It’s more sustainable. It’s not just some pie in the sky.”