[Tfug] Cabling between buildings

[Bexley Hall]

Hi,

I've a friend who has several buildings on his property
(many acres) between which he would like to run network 
cabling.  Wireless is out of the question (paranoia
as well as distances).

I imagine you can purchase CAT5 cable suitable for
direct burial.  But, I am not sure that even that would
handle the distances involved (think:  many acre ranch).

Optical fibre comes to mind as a solution (especially
to tolerate any large common mode voltages that you
could encounter in such an installation -- think:
lightning).  But, are there any better options?  He's
not keen on spending a lot of money to do so (e.g., he
could always purchase multiple cell phones with "data
service" and route packets through TPC to get from location
A to location B  :-/ )

Thx,
--don