It's a duct, if that was the cut end of the fibre there wouldn't be enough cable to work with to terminate it.

The yellow spool is a cobra rod.

In reply to a post by jpm:

The yellow spool is a cobra rod.

ahh, thank you!

Just to mention it is City fibre who only announced a couple of months ago and are mostly working in other side of town, I was surprised they just popped up and were feeding the cable through the BT chambers. I think they didn't connect any cables to any boxes or anything inside and the parts inside are there from already.

In reply to a post by jet14:

I was surprised they just popped up and were feeding the cable through the BT chambers

Technically now Openreach chambers (although have BT Group logo on the lids) and part of the "duct and pole access" product known as "Physical infrastructure access". The alt net rents the access from Openreach, goverend by Ofcom regulations.

In reply to a post by jpm:

It's a duct, if that was the cut end of the fibre there wouldn't be enough cable to work with to terminate it.

The yellow spool is a cobra rod.

Agreed it also kinks and ‘bunches’ in the photos, unlike an external grade fibre which is a lot more smooth / uniform when rolled up or bent that way.

The ripcord and sheath thickness are also giveaways. As is relative thickness and number of the microducts in the bundle.

As noted above, that’s increasingly common practise with AltNets as it’s generally cheaper to rent duct and chamber space from Openreach using their PIA product suite than it would be to dig and ditch your own ducts.

Even the sworn mortal enemy of BT - Virgin Media are in on the act. 😅