The best book for this I can think of would be Network Nation: Inventing Telecommunications by Richard John

It is a dense and heavy book, but his main theoretical thrusts are that politics have artifacts, and likewise, the engine of innovation is politics, and technological determinism is a red herring. It's a book of political economy, so it looks at the direct interactions between individual inventors, private corporations, and municipal, state, and federal government. His two case studies are the telegraph and the telephone, and he pays acute attention to physical/material capital investments and structures, ranging from the strategy of putting wires along railroad easements to the transatlantic telegraph wire. I think it will answer all your questions and then some.