No idea where you were at, but lots of big companies have done microwave and lots of new companies do microwave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCI_Communications MCI was founded as Microwave Communications, Inc. on October 3, 1963 with John D. Goeken being named the company's first president. The initial business plan was for the company to build a series of microwave relay stations between Chicago, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri. The relay stations would then be used to interface with limited-range two-way radios used by truckers along U.S. Route 66 or by barges on the Illinois Waterway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_Corporation Southern Pacific maintained an extensive microwave communications system along its rights-of-way that the railroad used for internal communications. AT&T had a bunch and I think a couple sites are still active: http://long-lines.net/ Western Union had a microwave network as well. Lots of companies build microwave for internal communications. Rail and utility companies are big here. All of the cell companies do some microwave in their more rural areas. Lots of independent ISPs use microwave to build their entire network. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miles Fidelman" <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net> To: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2018 9:54:25 AM Subject: (perhaps off topic, but) Microwave Towers Hi Folks, I find myself driving down Route 66. On our way through Arizona, I was surprised by what look like a lot of old-style microwave links. They pretty much follow the East-West rail line - where I'd expect there's a lot of fiber buried. Struck me as somewhat interesting. It also struck me that folks here might have some comments. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra