In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

But as witchunt also says it is the wild west out there in PIA land.

I agree, around my way there were some interesting safety practices by PIA-using subcontractors.

With that said the contractors installing OR FTTP were only slighty less awful in their work at height safety practices. And while the PIA guys were pretty good at sweeping up after themselves, the streets were covered in offcuts of COF250 for weeks, which only OR were using.

Well said !

Offcuts ??

Round here I’ve seen footway boxes left open and unguarded whilst the gang working are a couple of hundred metres away …. an accident waiting to happen.

And all these copper joints couldn’t have been laying in the water at the bottom of joint boxes as the blue rope brigade passed through could they ??

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Round here I’ve seen footway boxes left open and unguarded whilst the gang working are a couple of hundred metres away …. an accident waiting to happen.

That's pretty bad. Round my way the open footway boxes have generally been guarded on two sides not four, and the covers have been left outside the barriers in the still active section of footway. There has also been heavy use of folding barrier as access equipment - one man braces the barrier against the pole while the second climbs it to coil cable at the top of the capping.

The discarded offcuts have been anywhere from 0.3m to 1m sections of COF250 type cable, often with the end of a draw rope attached. Plus the usual selection of dropped nails, and even an elephant's foot.

The OR contractors (I can't remember who now, maybe KN) were impressively fast, but sweeping up didn't seem to have been part of the training.

Perhaps this cartoon from Private Eye in August 2020 sums things up.

https://imgur.com/a/VXWQiqR

Edit: Spoiler alert - contains strong language.

Edited by GonePostal (Fri 10-Sep-21 18:51:31)

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Perhaps this cartoon from Private Eye in August 2020 sums things up.

https://imgur.com/a/VXWQiqR

Very apt

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Perhaps this cartoon from Private Eye in August 2020 sums things up.

https://imgur.com/a/VXWQiqR

Edit: Spoiler alert - contains strong language.

That’s excellent ! 😄

Pinemedia in Sheffield appear to be using the smaller CBTs on poles (mainly 4 port) that look very similar to Openreach ones, need to take a closer look to see which brand they are. They are the only altnet I’ve seen using that type.

They seem to have gone for the same approach as Openreach as their CSPs on houses look like a clone of the Openreach ones too, just with the Pinemedia name on them.

Interesting. Thanks for the update.