telephony underground joint replacement

a timelapse of a typical joint remake, plus replacement of an observed non-watertight closure in the same location. (some non-approved tool techniques used for training purposes. ;-)

[@Falco45able]

Looks like he’s back jointing radial Ali cable, ! I would have had to pump out the water and clean and make good the box on a 1024 joint remake! 😁

[@jajajajajaja867]

This is exactly what I had to do in the assessment centre for the openreach engineer apprenticeship. Had to connect 1>10 on the first cable to 11>20 on the second, then 5 other random connections eg 23 on the first one to 49 on the second. All in all there were 15 pairs connected (30 connector block things all together)

[@angelo98idem]

Hi mate, what other things were involved in the assessment centre? Do I need a basic knowledge in telecommunications to pass it? Or do they will train you everything?

[@VX-Sascha]

Well done! Interesting, how BT Openreach uses modern technology.

[@hexatronik6950]

''Modern Technology'' haha

[@Brian3989]

Much easier to fix those joints. Was hard when using lead covered, paper-wrapped wires and single marker on each layer!

[@robertlloyd7493]

Gosh....he is fast !

[@mnkrause]

This is fascinating. I am a telephone cable splicer in the united states. I can see this is British Telecom. These cables appear to be unshielded?" Is that common? All of our outside network cable has an aluminum or steel and aluminum shields under the jacket I don't recognize the connectors, but they look similar to a 3M UR connector. I have never seen splice closures like those before. We have nothing like them over here.

[@justski5046]

Thanks for your comments. None of our cables are shielded, individual pairs are unshielded, the cable itself is unshielded. However this It has no effect on speech as cables are never run in ducts alongside power. Also our cable runs are usually relatively short lengths, probably on average 2-4 miles from the exchange. (we also have some rural routes, but these rarely exceed 8miles). We do experience digital crosstalk on broadband services but the effect is minimal leading to a slight reduction in bandwidth/speed on cables containing a proportionally high amount of broadband circuits. What you refer to as splicing we call jointing, (we use the term splicing when joining fibre optic). Our joint closures change over the years. From the early days of lead joints to rubber-bung and amalgamating tape sealed plastic closures, to resin sealed plastic closures, to heat-shrink sealed closures (the first closure I removed in the vid is a heat-shrink circa 2000 or so. Then we had the closure 34a, the bolt type, which also was used in the early 2000's or so. All closures are now a UCJ (universal clip joint) cold applied. Most of our closures are and have been made by TYCO / Raychem. We also use some 3M stuff, but usually connectors or small drop wire closures.

[@Elfnetdesigns]

In IT and Comms we call fiber splicing ""fusing" in my part of the world. South USA. All our outdoors POTs and comms cables are shielded though. We believe in grounding and bonding EVERYTHING to earth here even the armored fiber cable we use. Sadly in my area the old multi pair copper flown trunk lines are literally starting to rot and thus AT&T and other DSL providers that rely on that old copper cannot deliver what services and speeds they advertise in several areas. Hopefully fiber will completely replace all that old crap soon. They have been changing out the old copper to fiber.

[@justski5046]

we are in the early stages of entering a transition period here whereby copper is starting to become obsolete and secondary to fibre to the home here in UK. It wont be a quick process due to the massive costs involved.

[@brianleeper5737]

@@justski5046 The shield also prevents lightning damage due to induced voltage. Induced voltage can get high enough to damage the cable, so grounding the shield a minimum of every 1/4 mile helps to prevent cable damage.

[@andrewrixon2347]

E side cables have a foil Glover barrier as do some fibre cables ie blown fibre tubing. Transverse screen copper cables have a foil”screen” in between the send and receive pairs to stop/reduce signal crossover. The cables being worked on in the video were D side and therefore unscreened. We do use armoured cable occasionally but this is because it is usually buried and not in ductwork.

[@norfolkhall]

So the "open" joint which was the cap ended that had been cut into and sealed with tape, only needed the tape removing and a shrink down band fitting to made it sealed. The joint in the "darth vader" had to be completely remade, because I presume of water ingress ! Progress? Why is the engineer still using a knives pocket, these were taken off staff and made unavailable years ago as they were deemed as dangerous.

[@dav01kar]

You didnt Gold pen the joint with your Eng ID and date, that would be a 5 pointer in my day

[@craig833]

Then plopped it in the water… 👍🏼

[@user-sb4il8uz6f]

Bravos

[@mohdriyazmohiuddin8442]

What’s that without scotch lock called. (Are they empty pairs) plz let me know

[@justski5046]

Un connected wires amongst connected wires are known as ‘Spare pairs’.

[@Mike_5]

Might be a good idea to empty the water from the Footway Box too?

[@dronez7884]

1. To where? There are strict rules in the UK regarding contaminated water, even water that is silted (dirty) cannot just be emptied into the drainage system. 2 the UK’s footway boxes are usually ducted, meaning that the water is present in neighbouring boxes via the ducts 3. It rains A LOT in the UK, the water will be back 4. Footway boxes are only drained using waste managed ‘gully sucker’ crews IF the water is impeding entry into a joint. It’s normal to see and leave water in footway boxes. The joints, even though water tight when fitted correctly, are in most cases secured above the water line.

[@RaviSingh-rl9xl]

Cable jointer

[@Elfnetdesigns]

So pumping out all that water was not an option? Not even a paper cup to bail it out?

[@justski5046]

most of our joint boxes have water in them, it rains a LOT here. sometimes we pump out boxes if the closure is submerged and we cannot open it without water entering, but we have strict contamination rules meaning we cannot introduce contaminated water (even dirty-looking) water into the water course (either via land drains, or otherwise), so unless the water is 'in the way' we leave it as it is (although we will restrain joints above the water whenever possible). The joints we use, when fitted correctly are remarkably water-tight.

[@norfolkhall]

@@justski5046 True you wouldn't pump out the water if you didn't need to. When I was a faultsman jointer with Openreach we all had small submersible pumps to "empty out" a full joint box, discharging the water into the road drains.

[@timmaslanyk7437]

And not a single 11a was used that day… ahh, who cares about dissing EU’s anyway 😂

[@user-sb4il8uz6f]

De qu'elle région cvp

[@Freespeach0]

إنجلترا

[@timmaslanyk7437]

And not a single 11a was used that day… ahh, who cares about dissing EU’s anyway 😂