What does "BIK" on the road mean?

Gigaclear dug up our rural lane months ago, installing pots outside most houses, and actually doing quite a nice job with the tarmac they laid down the middle of the road over the trenches they'd dug. One end of the lane is able to order service. Ours is not (I think because they're planning to use Openreach poles rather than install pots... but not sure that's relevant to my question)

Anyway, the tarmac has recently been spray-painted in various places, with letters that look either like "BLK" or "BIK". Sometimes with an arrow alongside.

I know it doesn't actually matter, in terms of when service will be available to order but do any of the experts on here know what this text is intended to mean?

Blockage in underground duct perhaps, just a guess.

Perhaps Connectorised Block Terminal - CBT?

Blockage.

Thanks all. Yes - 'blockage' would be plausible.

The CBT theory is also interesting, given the plan to piggyback on existing Openreach poles.

I guess we'll find out eventually.

CBTs will be going on Openreach poles or existing chambers, not in the ground on their own. It's duct blockages. They'll clear those and put CBTs on the existing Openreach poles you mentioned if that's their plan else they'll build their own Toby boxes outside each property. I've never heard anyone mark CBTs on pavements: they'd mark the chambers the CBTs are going into, not the CBTs themselves. CBTs are not part of the digging and aren't marked for construction folks. They go in chambers the construction folks build and those chambers will be marked with how many ways duct goes from them and whether footway or carriageway. You'd see boxes drawn with FW2, FW4, CW6, or whatever and directions ducts are going from them.

Everyone uses Openreach chambers for CBTs, put them on Openreach/own poles or use cabinets with ducts from Toby boxes outside homes. Sometimes a combination ending with a cabinet or Openreach chamber. Virgin Media are the exception in very specific cases but even then they aren't digging chambers just for CBTs, they're digging them partly outside of new cabinets being used as part of upgrading their cable network. It's just not a thing.

Edited by XGS_Is_On (Sat 02-Mar-24 23:25:02)

Thanks - makes perfect sense.

I've spotted at least four of these markings along a short stretch of road... if it really does mean a blockage (meaning they need to dig up the brand new tarmac to fix the problem?) this 'after the fact snag fixing' must be super expensive for them.

this 'after the fact snag fixing' must be super expensive for them.

Not really, when you consider how many miles of existing duct they get access to gratis.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

this 'after the fact snag fixing' must be super expensive for them.

Not really, when you consider how many miles of existing duct they get access to gratis.

It's not gratis though...

https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/passiv...

Not every blockage need a dig to clear it.