Looks like a metpost through the cable, he'd never see the thing...
As for repair costs, I worked for BT marine (when we, as in the UK) still had our own ships etc, the joints and stuff were for a max of 25 fibres, don't know about land based stuff, but I'd have thought jointing would have been much cheaper, still atleast it didn't have a king wire at 25Kv in it!
Niel, now working in the "home" of fibre comms.