A robot that walks along power lines and wraps internet cable around them could change how fiber reaches far-off homes, and the footage is mesmerizing. Called Bombyx, after the silk-spinning silkworm, it was developed by Facebook Connectivity, now part of Meta, together with ULC Robotics, and it crawls along medium-voltage lines while winding a lightweight fiber-optic cable around the existing wire. Video clips show it moving through rural areas, close-ups of its wrapping mechanism, a bucket truck lifting it into place, and 3D animations of the device working on utility poles. The design calls for it to install more than a kilometer of cable in about 90 minutes, using machine vision to get around obstacles such as insulators.

The savings pitch is simple: most of the cost of fiber comes from construction, so using poles and lines that already exist avoids trenching and heavy equipment. Facebook said a crew would need only two or three utility linemen and a pickup truck, with many crews able to work at the same time. To keep the load light, engineers built a special cable with braided Kevlar cladding that carries 24 fibers instead of the usual 96. Still, the idea was first shown in 2021, an early prototype was guided around obstacles by remote control, and Facebook said it didn't plan to build and deploy the robot itself. That leaves a big question hanging: will utilities and internet providers adopt it widely enough to turn those promised savings into reality?