Road ducting technical question

Our cabinet (Leire 5) has had problems due to blockages in the road ducting. They have cleared the blockages now (after closing the road for a couple of nights) and have laid black cabling between the cabinet and presumably a main join (double manhole) way up the road.

Our local authority 'superfast' website states that they will blow fibre optic cabling down the ducts. I'm just a bit curious - I've seen Openreach workmen laying similar black cabling elsewhere but also black cabling with yellow lines on it. Is the black cabling some kind of outer sheath, so that someone comes along and runs the fibre optic cabling inside that? What is the difference between the two cables?

I guess I'm trying to work out how far away we are to getting the cabinet live!

From i've seen is that the black and yellow cable is what they call the ducting and then they blow the fibre through that.

I'm only going on this as when i spoke to some engineers they were fiddling with the black and yellow cable they said the fibre still had to be blown through.
This has now finished and now waiting for my cab to be commissioned which i believe is the last step!

That's weird then - we waited months for the blockages to get sorted and they definately put black cabling in last week.

Maybe we're further forward than we thought! (Maybe)

I must admit i did think the black and yellow cable already had the fibre in it already!
But after speaking to the engineer's who were fiddling with a fibre aggregation node 3 weeks a go they said the fibre still had to be done.

I can only speak about my cabinet but the steps where (there may be other more technical steps that happen in between all that)

Install Fibre Cabinet
Put in black yellow cable
Reshell PCP
Blow Fibre
Commission Fibre Cab

We are 3 months in on ours and just waiting on the commissioning. Other new cabs in the area appear to have been commissioned but i'm only basing knowing they've been commissioned when a silver lock has been put on!

Fibre too delicate for that...

The black with yellow stripe duct that contains mini ducts that the fibre is blown down
http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre-milton-keynes/wgc...

A fibre bundle with the strands split out of it
http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre-milton-keynes/wgc...

More at http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre-milton-keynes/ this is about FTTP but the fibre elements are basically the same.

Thanks Andrew.

What do you think the black cabling/sheath would be (on a 4 or 5 foot roll)? Will we have to wait for the fibre to go in it?

It will not have fibre in it, without seeing a close up hard to say, as the cables usually have some printing down them to indicate what they will carry.

Could be a drum of copper cable going in at the same time.

If it doesn't have the yellow stripe down the side then it'll be copper.

Thanks.

Fingers crossed the fibre will be going in sooner rather than later.