Optical Wave Providers

I have been looking at optical wave carriers for some long haul 1G/10G across the US. All to major cities and well known POP's. I am finding that there are not a lot of carriers who are offering wave services, usually just ethernet/MPLS. Particularly across the North west. Can someone shed some light on who some of the bigger carriers are and any challenges you have encountered with services like this? Who actually owns the fiber across the US? Thanks Tim