In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Two stages, black one inch thick tubing with mini tubes inside it is pulled through ducting and then the fibre is blown using a small compressor.

When people invariably say they see the fibre being installed its the big drum of black tubing they see, the fibre blowing can be just one or two people and easy to miss.

To be fair, people can probably read, and what it says on the reels of the black tubing is "fibre", not "this is a just a tube, but inside it there might be fibre some day, so please don't cut through it when digging up the road". It's all a bit Treachery Of Images, innit?

I'm actually intrigued as to why it's black. Why not a bright colour that will easily stand out for some dude with a JCB and his mind elsewhere? The modern plastic gas mains are bright yellow, which I presume is for this reason.

In reply to a post by tialaramex:

I'm actually intrigued as to why it's black. Why not a bright colour that will easily stand out for some dude with a JCB and his mind elsewhere? The modern plastic gas mains are bright yellow, which I presume is for this reason.

It's because the tubing, for the most part, is run through the existing ductwork with the phone cables not just buried in trenches like most utility ducting/pipework, so it doesn't need to be a bright colour.

And it does have a yellow stripe down it anyway