those days it's not trench digging (unless it's next to highway with machine that in one pass will trench and lay conduit/cable), it's trench drilling with something like this https://www.ditchwitch.com/directional-drills/
frontier installed fiber in my area using this method. relatively quick and no damage that needs to be "aggressively" paved over.
Can't do that in a century old city street with century old utilities in it.
They dug up the sidewalk with shovels here as a result; though using machinery to move the soil they dug up and handle the asphalt that's covering the sidewalk along part of the street.
Yeah you can directionally drill across a front yard typically; but actual urban areas are just too filled with infrastructure.
before drilling there was a team that mapped and marked all underground utilities.
some of the drilling went between front yards (this is where underground vaults are/were), but a bunch was done below sidewalks and across the streets.
frontier installed fiber in my area using this method. relatively quick and no damage that needs to be "aggressively" paved over.