The competition has been so fierce that they relatively hit a price floor," said Robert Schult, analyst with TeleGeography, which tracks the fiber-optic telecommunications industry. Schult sees indications of further recovery ahead as internet traffic levels increase and operators of telecommunications networks upgrade their capacity.

But, in the beaten-down fiber-optic cable business, the concept of price stabilization should be taken with a grain of salt. Current revenues don't come close to compensating for the billions spent in the late '90s to build out fiber-optic networks. The building boom led to a massive oversupply of fiber capacity and culminated in most builders filing for bankruptcy a few years later.

Today's prices, barely cover the administrative cost of running the network. But while prices remain low, encouraging signs are emerging in the markets for "lit" fiber, which is already equipped to carry internet traffic, and unlit or "dark" fiber, which can be equipped to carry traffic. Chief among these indicators is a recognition that the fiber glut cannot last forever.

We've known for a long time that the opportunity we've had for the last three or four years really was, in essence, an artifact of a very pronounced economic downturn in the telecommunications industry," said Steven Corbato, a managing director at high-speed network Internet2.

FiberCo, a fiber holding company and subsidiary of Internet2, has facilitated the purchase of over 10,000 route miles of dark fiber by the research and higher education community. Though prices were quite low and not likely to stay that way.

Large telecom service providers, have shown seemingly renewed interest in purchasing fiber. Google said it also sees dark fiber factoring in to its long-term plans.

Earlier this month, Broomfield, Colorado-based Level 3 Communications bought an unprecedented 300 GB of transatlantic capacity from the Apollo Submarine Cable System network, and also acquired rival internet network operator WilTel in December.

While today, there is more than enough lit fiber to satisfy the most gluttonous bandwidth users, demand is growing. Internet traffic across the Atlantic, for example, rose by about 40 percent last year.