More works listed. Still in the right place but difficult to know if they are related to fibre.

I am starting to doubt that it is fibre related. The duct which they were installing/removing/fixing was yellow, where as (from what I recall) fibre ducting is black with yellow stripes. It's also in a bit of an odd location for it to be related to our cabinet, so I'm not sure really.

Openreach/BT seem to be doing some peculiar works around our area - a few roadworks listings mention ducting/cabinet work on pre-existing and already upgraded fibre cabinets.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

I am starting to doubt that it is fibre related. The duct which they were installing/removing/fixing was yellow

If it was yellow, it was a rod, (either from a continuous drum in the back of a van or shorter lengths screwed together) used to push through duct.

If you've ever seen the phrase 'test rod & rope', this is a what is entailed to install a draw rope.

Ah, that could've been it then, especially considering the roadworks was for clearing blockages. Although they just had (what looked like) a hundred metres of it out on the footway, with the other half down the manhole. It wasn't on any kind of a reel or drum, though, and appeared to be one continuous tube (I didn't see any joints).

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Fri 03-Feb-17 18:14:45)

Sounds very like the yellow duct clearing, as while often seen on a drum it can be spotted laid out as described too

Have you any idea why they would be clearing blocked ducts? Does it sound like it could be related to the installation of fibre to our cabinet, or is this something they might do for other reasons?

Fibre most likely, or could be because need to put more copper into the ground, or a third party wants to install something in the duct via the PIA scheme (most unlikely but a remote possibility)

Fibre is what I'm hoping, but it's in a bit of an odd location if it is related to our cabinet (there are no other existing or planned cabinets nearby). I've drawn a diagram showing the location of these ducting works, the cabinet(s) and the previous roadwork listings.

http://i.imgur.com/NNQMh58.jpg

Yellow route: Old footpath
Red route: Previous ducting roadworks listings (which were cancelled)
Magenta arrow: Exchange direction (about 1km away)
Roadworks icon: Recent duct blockage clearance works (also had work done on the opposite side of the road)

Is it possible that they may plan on installing fibre cables down an old, steep footpath rather than down the main footpath besides the road? I would've thought that there are already underground ducts which exist in the main footpath, but they cancelled all the previous scheduled works on it last year. Is it possible that they might not be able to install any cables under the main footpath as it has been recently resurfaced less than 2 years ago?

Sorry for all these questions, I'm just eager to know what they might be doing and when I will be able to order a fibre service.

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Fri 03-Feb-17 22:54:00)

Councils often have rules about messing with recently resurfaced paths/roads.

The location near golf club would make total sense for an additional cabinet to serve a number of postcodes, that would otherwise not get superfast when their existing cabinet was enabled

Well, the duct work was on both sides of the road so I assume they're just unblocking a route, not actually installing any fibre cabinets nearby. Looking at your maps section of this site, I can't see why it would be useful to install an additional cabinet nearby there as it's literally 100m from the actual cabinet and wouldn't offer much of a speed increase.