Fibre install problems. Cut and pull

I've had few Openreach civil engineers out over due to problems rodding the fibre through underground ducting to my house.

Latest engineers spent hours digging up path but the ducting apparently goes all over the place. They advised they will report back to engineer and recommend cut and pull of existing line. A friend has mentioned this is risky as could result in losing existing line if it doesnt work and would then be without line.

So my question is, has anyone else had install by cut and pull of old line? And are there ways to resolve if that doesn't work either.

Thanks

If a cut a pull doesn't work then the only likely recourse is to dig and excavate the duct.

I'm sure you would have to let them try this before they'd be prepared to commit to digging the duct up, so you don't have much choice.

Do you know where the duct first enters your property? It might be possible to dig down to this and then run a cable above ground temporarily rather than leaving you cut off if the rope comes off the cable while they are pulling it back.

Has anybody tried blowing a string tied to a plastic bag down the duct?

Edited by jpm (Wed 12-Apr-23 16:23:44)

They put over 12 metres of rods down and found blockage, it's a very condensed housing development with the ducting doing twists and turns and coming up inside my property under the stairs, in a vertical upwards.

Very badly designed by builders, I think cut and pull will be only option as ducting seems to run under other houses.

An externally run fibre will be thicker than a copper connection (assuming it's just a 1 or 2 pair cable) - and its bend radius is much less tolerant than a copper cable. I assume they would cut the copper and pull back a nylon thin rope and then attempt to pull the fibre via the same route. Risky, but other than digging up the duct, you are out of options. Absolute worse case is they could pull the copper back though and re-join it...

An externally run fibre will be thicker than a copper connection (assuming it's just a 1 or 2 pair cable)

No it won’t.

I assume as you've had a few Openreach people out you've had one of their specialist teams who have the larger rods/know what they are doing to try and get through?

I had similar issues back in 2021:
- Pickr failed to rod & rope as part of the Fibre first built
- MJ Quinn spent 5 mins with rod and declared there was a blockage
- Openreach newbie spent 3.5 hours trying to rod based on their records, the ones I'd told him were wrong.
- Openreach troubleshooter spent 3 hours, traced copper, used larger rod and then camera/rod with hook from other end to get rod all the way then rope to footway box.

Issue in my case was, incorrect records, a long 50m+ run to the first footway box and something causing the thin rods to go wrong way/get blocked.

The newbie Openreach engineer (only ever done fibre installs and couldn't fathom that the records on his iPhone might be wrong) did look at a cut and pull like you have had suggested. That would have been fun as he'd have cut someone else's phone line as he was heading the other way to my line!

If you have had the experts out then it sounds like cut and cover or a team to dig things up is the next step.

And before a certain person says anything about hassles of fibre, my FTTC carried on whilst above was being sorted and two years later I have not had any issues at all on my FTTP.

That's exactly what they did do, attached rope and pulled copper back through as well as the fibre. Neighbours have had exactly the same problem but engineers used same method. Thanks for help, been some time since install.