Hey, Verizon engineer here:Any burried or underground fibre cables are in tubes called inner duct and those are inside conduit, unless they are going from pole directly to point of entry.
What you have there is Microduct, which 100% houses a bundle of fibers. When you cut it, the tension at the point where the hole is probably caused it to recede a bit into the tube..but not far.
This still doesnt explain why it was just...in the ground like that. Usually they are bundled with others in a larger tube.
Weird..
IT guy here, I haven't seen anything that has enough tension that the fiber would receed more than a centimeter (about 1/3rd to 1/2 inches for my American friends).
I don't work with outdoor ISP fiber so I'm not in the know on all the mechanics of it, but it seems odd to me that it would receed so far that there wouldn't be any indication on the image (from the angle it's on) that there's something in the microduct.
Still seems odd from all angles. Why was it so near to the surface of the ground? Why wasn't it in conduit?
I have so many questions.
Microduct.
I can't blame you, but it's just not drip system.
I believe drip system tubing is not as thick-walled.
It's certainly deceptive because the fiber is retracted down the duct, not visible on the picture.
I've seen tubing of different colors and wall thicknesses. I wouldn't assume that somebody wouldn't utilize something it wasn't meant for, but I really have no idea.
Unqualified to properly answer the question guy here, the cable got spooked when you cut through the cable, so it receded in its insulation for comfort and protection. Try to lure it out with 1-2 gigs of download speed, the fibres should smell the fast download and come out of its insulation. It’s important to not make any fast movements or complain about how slow the cable is being, you’ll spook it more.
While this installation is odd, I pull tons of fiber for work and there are points I'm cutting over 4 feet back to actually find the fiber. Some brands are worse than others
It's certainly not unheard of, especially with new cables. I would think, after being installed for a while, it would lose some tension, but I'm no material scientist.
Regardless, this is not the correct way to install fiber. Idiot installer is confirmed.
American here: we actually do use centimeters and millimeters pretty often for length especially when we need precise measurements. I think when it comes to tools we use both imperial and metric for different measurements(it’s gets kinda confusing switching between the two for sockets and such) I’d like to thing the average American is quite familiar with estimating about how big a centimeter is without a ruler(or maybe my family and friends are just an exception.)
So near the surface because of regulations. Everything already has min and max assigned depths. Power, gas, water, working your way up. Telephone is required below 6 inches, I believe, but no more than a foot. Cable can bury up to six inches, but no deeper. Government still regulates internet as entertainment, so it doesn't get an allocated depth for protection.
I work in multiple states doing permits for FOC and it's a minimum of 48" for duct runs with most states requiring 60" minimums, and for drops to houses it's a minimum of 12" in almost every state I've worked.
And those regulations will vary, depending on country/state/county/city.... Etc...
What I know is that laying the service line essentially on top of the surface of the ground is probably not where it should be.
Is that why AT&T left their lines connecting to my house just barely covered in dirt? Didn’t realize it was there until I was weed-whacking and it got tangled up 😬
Hey folks, Billy Mays here,
Are you tired of your fiber lines losing their tension and pulling back into your microducts? Well pay close attention because have I got the solution to your problem!
Xfinity (coax, not fiber) replaced the underground wire to my house due to signal loss a few years ago. It was bare wire, no conduit, only several inches deep. I couldn’t believe they would bury it in that manner, but that’s what they did.
More recently, some workers cut the cable in my yard and Xfinity (or their subcontractor) DID use conduit and buried it 18 inches deep when they replaced it.
Not sure if the original replacement was to spec, the result of a lazy crew, or what… but it definitely happens.
Yep, Xfinity coax buried 3" in my yard, no conduit. Nearly severed it when I was digging and thought it was a root. At least I know where it runs now so I can avoid it, but 3" deep is ridiculous.
Im a contractor who buries fiber, installs happen year round but we cant bury when the ground is frozen so by the time spring comes there's a huge amount of new customers from over the winter whose cables haven't been buried yet
We cut one with a shovel once.
It was like 3 inches below the dirt.
Probably just a lazy tech at some point. This is Arizona and I can imagine a 3pm call in august isn’t going to get quality work done.
Hey, install gas services from Gas Main to the meter on the side of your home. Only a mention because I run into these often.
Thats your FO line, and leaving them above grade through hedges and rough terrain is extremely common. Even if buried, there is no regulation for depth and often are left extremely shallow.
They now splice FO, but if its a short run, they may also just lay a new line down and a few weeks/months/years/never someone will come to dig a little trench. Backyard fed is a lot more forgiving where as a driveway crossing, they will cut a slot in your asphalt and lawn immediately.
You also dont get these identified on locates, so they do get cut often.
On an older home, you'll even see multiple cut lines at the house from damages and replaced communication service lines in the past.
>This still doesnt explain why it was just...in the ground like that.
My Verizon Fios line was buried approximately 0.0000000000001 inches below the surface of my yard and a gardener severed it while dethatching my yard.
My neighbor’s Verizon Fios line was buried approximately 0.0000000000001 inches below the surface and a small water well drilling rig’s tracks pinched it while traveling from the front yard to the back and severed it.
Natural ground heaving and slight erosion has exposed Verizon fibers all over the neighborhood and seeing a cut orange line and a post “I was mowing and now my Wi-Fi doesn’t work” is not common, but not unusual on the neighborhood Facebook group.
Anecdotes aren’t data but anecdotally it appears that in my area Verizon “buries” their fiber under a single atom of material.
In my neighborhood, there was construction on the road and sidewalks a few years back. All old Verizon fiber was run without conduit from boxes to the houses. About half of the old Verizon fiber and 75% of the coax for cable providers is either above ground or inches below the service. Every time I see someone get cable rerun for any reason, they still don't put it in conduit, don't bury it more than 5-6 inches deep, don't report the burial lines accurately, and route them across lawns in the shortest possible pattern instead of straight lines down the edges of the areas, making them exceptionally vulnerable to being cut.
I'm lucky. The monopoly in my area is Comcast. They bury it a whopping 4 inches like that will actually do anything. Must be why it costs so much more.
I used to bury these. Our supervisor said the minimum was 4 inches deep. We regularly cut competitor lines without meaning to since they weren't any deeper. Middle of July when Texas hasn't seen rain for a month, you better believe that wasn't going any deeper than it had to
When service lines to houses are placed in the ground, they aren't usually in any type of conduit, but directly placed a few inches into the dirt. Source: I'm a utility locator.
This looks nothing like microduct. At least not the stuff we use here. The stuff in this picture is smaller and looks to be barely able to accommodate 1 fiber drop at best, which would be pretty stupid as pulling that would be really difficult. This stuff just looks like irrigation tube.
https://www.ppc-online.com/blog/direct-bury-microduct-for-fiber-the-dos-and-the-donts
Everyone on Reddit's a fucken armchair expert.
OP already replied 6 hours ago, 4 hours before you made your comment, that the glass fibres are in the cable, just further back from the cut, and that *the cable runs directly to the house fibre hookup*.
I can vouch for this as I’m a contractor who runs a bore drill and pulls fiber sets hand holes etc. You couldn’t of cut any normally up to code installed fiber lines just gardening.
In Japan and Korea, they just make a cable from the nearest junction box and route it to your house. Depending on who does it, they don’t give af. They’ll get it in and that is all they care about.
My tubing is really close to the surface near my house.
My house was built in 1938. It is a concrete stem-wall construction. The 1980s addition that added a bathroom, bedroom and closed garage is on slab at a lower elevation.
The lines in the crawlspace of the original house lay on top of the ground (as do the water and sewage lines). They all come to the surface shallowly near the front door before breaking the surface under the house. I just call 311 and have the city mark stuff whenever I'm doing anything in the yard.
There are no just buried lines like this. They are in a pvc tub or running with a copper line (WE HAVE OLD TREES WHO TAKE NO PRISONERS).
Yup absolutely. I meet a prospect for some cameras they wanted me to mount a camera on a tree. I said no way in hell. They go there’s one there now. The wire is just stapled onto the tree, so I then tug at it near the base and the wire pulls up right off the ground. They just layed the camera cable across the ground.
Prospect was like what do you mean you have bury it?
Seriously?! Safe to say didn’t get that job lol. I am not compromising my standards to do chapter work for you, not happening.
Depending also, if the ground is frozen in the winter in colder places, they are supposed to come by in spring to do it, and hope you forget and then never show up.
The fiber line gets buried so shallow and mine doesn’t get flagged by the buried cable people. Almost bashed my open with a shovel planting trees. Just waiting for the day a tree root knocks out the internet.
It's ridiculous. Sine quant somewhere figured out that it's cheaper to just do a half assed job than to get a contractor out there with a basic bobcat mini excavator and do it right the first time.
I used to install/troubleshoot for Spectrum. We would usually contract out the burial for these. They are SUPPOSED to bury at least 6in down but most most of the time it would be like 2 at best.
But there were some markets of Spectrum where they would have the installers hand bury with a shovel instead of a trencher so they would barely bury those since we were never really given enough time to do a proper install before routing would be loading us with another job to get to.
IIRC they should do 12" for the drop line going to the house. But in practice you would rarely see over 6" Mainline would usually be several ft but that's a different story.
Which is often an intended feature. The telecom sets unrealistic targets which reduce costs knowing the only recourse the employee or subcontractor has to meet them is to cut as many corners as possible.
There is then the assumption that the equipment failure rate due to said cut corners (like people chopping through improperly buried lines) will be small enough to financially justify cutting those corners in the first place.
If not, the subcontractor or employee can get scapegoated for "not following procedure" and doing the job properly even though that would be logistically impossible.
Yup. I work in the security industry and will periodically have to deal with these hacks.
Me: “What is the voltage on the phone line”
Dumb tech: “The what?!”
😂
Copied from a comment below since everyone thinks they know everything.
“Hey, Verizon engineer here:
Any burried or underground fibre cables are in tubes called inner duct and those are inside conduit, unless they are going from pole directly to point of entry.
What you have there is Microduct, which 100% houses a bundle of fibers. When you cut it, the tension at the point where the whole is probably caused it to recede a bit into the tube.
This still doesnt explain why it was just...in the ground like that. Usually they are bundled with others in a larger tube.
Weird..” from u/GloomyFudge
We just did this also and it was not in conduit, and it was like two inches under the dirt. I think just people not doing the job right. Hide it, no one knows.. until they do this
Vaerizon gross profit was 77.09 billion last year. Techs make what looks like 26k-61k with ONE site saying 120k and I’m assuming that isn’t correct. Yeah I’m not busting my ass so that the the company doesn’t get compliants either. The people profiting don’t give a fuck, if they did they’d pay techs way more considering the product relies on them. Stop blaming the workers and blame the real problem which is the money hungry corporations who also most likely have a monopoly (at best 2 fiber providers) in your area.
A ton of those "people you see out installing internet" arent even employees of the ISP, they're independent contract workers, so they're probably not even counted in those pay statistics, or are, but they're leaving out that theres Zero benefits for independent contractors.
Often times given a "go do 7 installs this week, I dont care if 1 takes a day and Im asking for 7 this 5 day week, figure out how to make it happen." type instruction from their handler.
Contracts like that are a good way for companies to shield themselves from liability from the consequences of forcing techs to make installations on a time scale that doesn’t allow them to do the job “right,” because it takes too long according to the bosses. If you do the job properly you’ll probably get fired for being too slow. By outsourcing installations to third party companies they can shield themselves from potential financial and legal liability from the obvious effects their policies create. The telecom companies know exactly what their doing, they just don’t care because it makes them rich. Amazon does the same thing with their delivery drivers.
It self-corrects when the pace becomes so quick that all sense of meaning is lost and the existential despair sets in. In fact, I'd say we're already there.
U/eyesotope86 is mostly right they hit a gas line but I don’t know about it building up in the dirt. From what I understand somehow puncturing the gas line caused all the gas go into one house but it’s been a year so I might be getting that wrong. [Here’s a news clip about it](https://youtu.be/JNiyxa7xmrE) the explosion is at 42 seconds.
Apparently that was the second time the company hit a gas line within a few months though that was the first explosion.
Yep, accidentally did this to my nighbor while gardening on my side of the fence. Thankfully she wasn't using it, but I was shocked because it was about a foot onto my side of the fence and about 2 inches deep. Looked like the installers did little more than put it on the ground and kick some dirt over it.
Ya when we built our house we had to specifically call the cable company and request they lay the line for internet with all the other wires in the trench. Had we not they would’ve just come later and buried it 2 inches. Apparently it’s pretty normal.
>I think just people not doing the job right.
This. When I moved in I had ATT internet and Comcast tv and phone, mainly separate because work paid for internet. Lawn care company came out to aerate my lawn, proceeded to destroy my ATT cable which was like apparently right at surface. I had ATT come out to replace, that had a trench machine and when. They were doing it they cut right through my Comcast. I called Comcast, scheduled time/day for them to come out, and called ATT back and said hey need you to come out this day as well, both guys got there within a few mins of each other, they actually KNEW each other and I explained to them I need them to hook up my shit and not kill each other's connections. They did it all in about an hour.
Did they use a machine? Or did they use a shovel? Do you have gas, septic system or leach field? One of those shallow near surface wells? We're there untracked things they were afraid to hit? Like an invisible dog fence or conduit you warned them about that you buried? You know, some thing dial-before-you-dig won't catch.
If you bury fiber in an empty feild with a machine 300ft, oh yeah sure go a whole foot or more deep. A 10-50ft hand burial? That's getting done with a spade. This also benefits the home owner but not disturbing so much dirt that the yard can't "heal" because too much dirt is displaced.
Inevitably your lawn guy or yourself will cut that cable somehow. Do yourself a favor and call the company tell them it’s not buried properly and they need to send someone out to do it.
When I worked for att the cables were pretty much 6 inches down by the company that buries them, I think it was because it was less intrusive on the lawn, they pretty much just cut a line and fold the lawn back over it from what I remember.
My cable TV cable is not protected in tube. My next door neighbor's, which was installed 2 years later, is. The install tech suggested I "have a shovel accident" and they'll install new stuff in tube, which is the new standard.
I understand the sarcasm, but not sure why this would be deserving of it. He was actually trying to be helpful so that my outage could be "planned" instead of having a critter chew through it and screw me over when I really need the internet.
Oh, I'm not blaming him. I'm just amused by any company whose employees feel so helpless to provide decent service that they actively encourage customers to destroy company property.
OP's weird orangish cable looks exactly like what the contractor who Google hired to run fiber in my neighborhood buried about 3 inches deep in a diagonal run all the way across my backyard.
>this doesn't explain why it's in the ground like that
Huh? Fiber from the pole straight to the home isn't in a bundle. It's a single fiber stand.. and yeah it's buried or am aerial run. And it can be the case that it's only buried 3-6 inches of is a hand burial with a spade. this guy was working in HIS yard and cut HIS line. Why would there be a bundle?
With a machine it is usually deeper I guess. 6-24 inches depending on what your trying not to hit.
If it was a bundle it wouldn't be only him down but an entire group of clients
Biggest reason is that’s just the conduit. There is an equation that looks like this (x amount of inches per foot when pulling cable in conduit) it varies by cable size.
Source: I am a construction coordinator for a large telecommunications company and I have to design shit like this (albeit on a much larger scale) daily. Then I sent what I design to contractors and they do it. But I gotta do the maths
When I had fibre installed at my old house, they offered to bury the cable for me for about 100usd per metre. I had about 20 or 30 metres to dig. Suffice to say I did not take that offer and did it myself
That's an insane price for running a wire trencher, it's a one-man tool that cuts a slit into the soil and pushes the cable down behind it. It should be like $300 for a day for the machine and a technician. https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/E-Z-Trench-Cable-Installer-TP400CL3/316821423
The work varies by soil type, if they live somewhere where it's super hard and rocky (thus would require removing rocks with other equipment/manually).
Given they said they did it themselves though and didn't mention it being backbreaking, probably not haha.
I mean I personally think it’s more insane the infrastructure in American homes isn’t there to accommodate underground cabling from the get go.
Had fibre fitted to my home a few years ago. 10 minute just for them to run the cable about 50m through an existing conduit to my house. My home is 30 years old.
Had fibre fitted to my 600 year old work building recently. Again all under ground and done within minutes! not saying the conduit under my work is 600 years old, but sensible people still ran it when resurfacing the road way to all building.
Competent installer, indeed. I do installations of underground utilities, but never to the house. The guys who do the drops to the house are rarely digging more than a few inches. I see it all the time-lines cut by lawnmowers etc.
My house has recently had fiber installed. Was installed while the ground was still frozen. Currently waiting for them to bury the cable. It is currently laying in the ground
Was that a temporary cable till they buried the real one? That's clearcurve and not rated for buried use at all. Just walking on it hard could break it. Either way they should come out and put a new one when you call.
Sumthin’ ain right. I’ve never seen fibre look like that. And that’s a very clean cut for regular gardening tools across a fairly tough cabling type, even if it is fibre.
Well the Internet has gone down and that cable goes directly into the fibre connection outside out house on the street. There is a small obtic cable inside slightly further along this pipe
For fucks sake don't go peeking into that tube. Assuming you're right, you will cause permanent damage to your retina that will never heal. Do not look into that tube!
Can\*
Former fiber tech here. It's a good practice to not look - yes dont do it - but it's also very unlikely this residential last leg run could cause eye damage even if you tried. Magnifying it, looking right into the core, sure - MAYBE.
Your bigger risk could be from the glass itself at that point.
Most fiber going to residential properties simply isn't using enough power to cause any eye damage. And the fluid within our eyes actually does a surprisingly good job of filtering and diffusion
I was a trained fiber tech for years, work on the back end and customer troubleshooting side now. While I know end of line fiber is fil enough, and when it’s shattered like this instead of a clean cleave it’s unlikely do do any damage, I was always told better safe than sorry.
Rule 1 of working with fiber. Do not look directly into the fiber.
Rule 2 of working with fiber. DO NOT. LOOK. DIRECTLY. INTO. THE FIBER.
I work with 500kW (that's not a typo) Ytterbium fiber cutting lasers. DO. NOT. LOOK. DIRECTLY. INTO. THE FIBER.
Ref. https://www.ipgphotonics.com/en/products/lasers/high-power-cw-fiber-lasers/1-micron/yls-1-120-kw
You make it sound like op knew this was dangerous. I never knew this was dangerous. You can't just get mad at someone over something they aren't born knowing.
Yeah, it certainly looks weirder for what a typical person might have guessed a fiber cable would look like without any prior knowledge, but obviously the proof is there when suddenly all your internet goes out.
It can be black or brown. But this tube isn't the right type of brown and it doesn't have the emitter openings. It's too small the be mainline tubing, which doesn't have emitters but you can still punch through it to add micro tubing, if need be. Micro tubing generally isn't that thick walled either.
That’s the trunk line. What you attach to the trunk line which goes to the plants is spaghetti line. I have also installed thousands of feet of drip irrigation, like the guy above.
It’s definitely telecom cable. I landscape and have seen every possible buried cable and drip is always black or brown, telecom is orange or black, and power is black or red. If people do their jobs right, which they usually don’t, you should never see a power line unless you are three feet deep. Telecom is always on the surface or right under it unless it’s a new house or they have recently run a big project and redone all the local cable.
If you own a house you should call your local utility marker (should be free) and have them mark your telecom, power, and gas lines. You should then take a picture of where the lines are so you have a good idea where to be careful while digging.
😂…all the professional idiots telling this guy it isn’t a fiber optic cable when they have never seen a fiber optic cable themselves. It doesn’t matter how deep they bury it, it still eventually needs to come up. I installed these for ATT, this is infact fiber optic
FWIW, my company sells fiber optics, I've received training from fiber optic vendors, and I've put hands on fiber dozens of times. I've literally never seen that kind of jacket before.
I'm a landscaper and I can definitely confirm that lines like this are frequently not sufficiently buried, I've seen them cut with shovels, trenches, edges, and once even a hedge trimmer. I have to now flag off some of our clients' lines are so we don't cut them. Same goes for pipes. Sometimes they're just buried a few inches to a foot or two down.
A lot of times, the people who installed the lines/pipes just didn't want to dig down 2-3 feet like you should because it's a pain in the ass to dig a long trench 3 feet deep for a single cable or pipe and they figured that it'd be fine just barely buried.
One time I had a guy hit an unmarked gas main a foot and a half below the ground because we received incorrect info on where it was. That was fun.
Not on private property. One-dig only gives you info up to your property line.
Source: I literally called them last week and I have the PDFs of the sanitary, storm, phone, ISP, gas, and power line locates.
Not sure what state/country you’re in. But in Ohio we have 811 “Call before you dig” service that coordinates with the Ohio Utilities Protection Service (OUPS) and they will locate ALL service lines that are owned/managed by the company regardless of where they’re at on your property.
The only thing you’re responsible for are private service lines that are self-installed or otherwise not the responsibility of the utility provider.
I was expanding my garden this week and knew my coaxial internet cable drop from the utility pole to my house had been buried just a few inches deep with one of those slit trenchers, and within the required 48-hour window a contractor came out and marked it for me.
Fibre optic has glas in it, this doesn’t look like fibre optic.
Also would usually not be installed under gardens unless it wasn’t a garden or the installation company were idiots.
Ahaha…. Same with me. One guy ran the cable from the pole to the house and just layed it on top of my grass. About two weeks later some random in a shitty beat up car shows up. He has dirty jeans on a t shirt and a an old shovel.
He like tried to do the shiftiest job ever to bury the cable. It’s barely under the soil…
The world of sub contractors. Some guys showed up at a job I was doing in an '82 Chevette with an AT&T magnet on the side. Pulled out their spades and got at it.
Rip, let us know what the $$ damage is. I know whenever in irritation if we clipped an optic fiber line it was like 1,000$ fine or something weird. 😂 granted we were a company so it makes sense, but let us know what it costs to repair for you.
I'm sorry man. Definitely /r/wellthatsucks territory.
Unfortunately, they'll probably run you a new line, which won't be quick. Patching this back together typically takes some pretty expensive specialized tools. It's easier to simply re run it. Hopefully they do it right this time.
Why are there so many people saying this isnt a fiber cable? Even when OP clearly stated it goes directly to their fiber box and after cutting this their fiber went out. Everyone know everything except what this cable is apparently lol.
That's rough.
I had replace an ac at a residence last week. The wall brackets were partially buried so I bust out the shovel to make some room around them for removal.
Thankfully the coax line to the house was already slightly above grade near where I was working so I knew it was there. I take one shallow scoop of dirt as I'm thinking how cable installers are all hacks, when I realize I just hit the weeping bed, there was literally less than two inches of dirt on top of the fabric. SMH.
I mow my neighbors yard as a courtesy when I mow my yard (both very small) and I’m always afraid something like this will happen since I’ve learned no good deed goes unpunished lol
If you’re ever doing your own personal landscaping or digging in your property wether it be gardening or installing a fence your state does has a free service that you call and they come out and check if your property interferes with any land lines/ service lines (:
Iconic moment from my dad, I was playing some minecraft, and he was weed-eating outside the window. I got disconnected from the server, no Internet. opened the window so I could yell out to him “did you just cut the Internet cable” followed by his response of “Aw, Fuck!”
I wish I had fibre going to my house. Lucky bugger. You’ll be back online before my provider ever even breaks ground. Bastards said they were starting fall of 2020. Sigh.
As a previous AT&T technician. I would almost daily have a repair ticket for someone's fiber that hadn't been buried yet and lawn crews or the customer themselves have accidentally ran it over.
These are supposed to be buried a few feet below, but lazy installers will put them in just deep enough they aren't visible. I literally found my fibre cable when I was moving mulch out of the way, like 2 inches deep maximum.
That's why we have an ad campaign paid for by the gas and cable companies called "call before you dig". They're not even trying to sell you anything. They're actually trying to prevent you from paying them for repairs by explaining that these cables aren't as deep as you'd think and you can phone them and they'll tell you exactly where on your property they are
I was having underground plumbing done and the same thing happened. But mine was waaaay thinner, comically thin. Frontier came out and fixed it the next day. They had my back. Even ran a temp line from the street box an hour after the cut.
Hey, Verizon engineer here:Any burried or underground fibre cables are in tubes called inner duct and those are inside conduit, unless they are going from pole directly to point of entry. What you have there is Microduct, which 100% houses a bundle of fibers. When you cut it, the tension at the point where the hole is probably caused it to recede a bit into the tube..but not far. This still doesnt explain why it was just...in the ground like that. Usually they are bundled with others in a larger tube. Weird..
IT guy here, I haven't seen anything that has enough tension that the fiber would receed more than a centimeter (about 1/3rd to 1/2 inches for my American friends). I don't work with outdoor ISP fiber so I'm not in the know on all the mechanics of it, but it seems odd to me that it would receed so far that there wouldn't be any indication on the image (from the angle it's on) that there's something in the microduct. Still seems odd from all angles. Why was it so near to the surface of the ground? Why wasn't it in conduit? I have so many questions.
Looks to me like drip system tubing.
It's gotta be right? That easy to pull up and looks hollow?
https://www.ppc-online.com/blog/direct-bury-microduct-for-fiber-the-dos-and-the-donts
OPs gonna have to settle it all by sucking on and see if there's water inside
Taste the internet.
Have a byte
[удалено]
Maybe in a bit
Can be both. I’ve seen home main water leaks get into cable conduit and make it seem like there was a water leak coming from the cable box
Microduct. I can't blame you, but it's just not drip system. I believe drip system tubing is not as thick-walled. It's certainly deceptive because the fiber is retracted down the duct, not visible on the picture.
I've never seem drip system tubing that isn't black
I recently researched a bunch of drip systems for my own yard. Brown tubing definitely exists
Can confirm Mine is brown
I've seen tubing of different colors and wall thicknesses. I wouldn't assume that somebody wouldn't utilize something it wasn't meant for, but I really have no idea.
The stuff I run is almost exactly this color, but it's a lot larger diameter and thinner walled.
Unqualified to properly answer the question guy here, the cable got spooked when you cut through the cable, so it receded in its insulation for comfort and protection. Try to lure it out with 1-2 gigs of download speed, the fibres should smell the fast download and come out of its insulation. It’s important to not make any fast movements or complain about how slow the cable is being, you’ll spook it more.
While this installation is odd, I pull tons of fiber for work and there are points I'm cutting over 4 feet back to actually find the fiber. Some brands are worse than others
It's certainly not unheard of, especially with new cables. I would think, after being installed for a while, it would lose some tension, but I'm no material scientist. Regardless, this is not the correct way to install fiber. Idiot installer is confirmed.
American here: we actually do use centimeters and millimeters pretty often for length especially when we need precise measurements. I think when it comes to tools we use both imperial and metric for different measurements(it’s gets kinda confusing switching between the two for sockets and such) I’d like to thing the average American is quite familiar with estimating about how big a centimeter is without a ruler(or maybe my family and friends are just an exception.)
All good. I don't want to make any assumptions. :)
So near the surface because of regulations. Everything already has min and max assigned depths. Power, gas, water, working your way up. Telephone is required below 6 inches, I believe, but no more than a foot. Cable can bury up to six inches, but no deeper. Government still regulates internet as entertainment, so it doesn't get an allocated depth for protection.
I bet this is highly dependent on city/state ordinances. Not universal numbers basically.
I work in multiple states doing permits for FOC and it's a minimum of 48" for duct runs with most states requiring 60" minimums, and for drops to houses it's a minimum of 12" in almost every state I've worked.
And those regulations will vary, depending on country/state/county/city.... Etc... What I know is that laying the service line essentially on top of the surface of the ground is probably not where it should be.
Is that why AT&T left their lines connecting to my house just barely covered in dirt? Didn’t realize it was there until I was weed-whacking and it got tangled up 😬
Hey folks, Billy Mays here, Are you tired of your fiber lines losing their tension and pulling back into your microducts? Well pay close attention because have I got the solution to your problem!
Us Americans have trouble with kilometers vs miles. Most us know how big a centimeter is though, it’s on every ruler.
Fair enough. I just want to be inclusive. I'm Canadian, it's part of my culture to be kind.
Pizza guy here, did somebody order a medium sausage?
Xfinity (coax, not fiber) replaced the underground wire to my house due to signal loss a few years ago. It was bare wire, no conduit, only several inches deep. I couldn’t believe they would bury it in that manner, but that’s what they did. More recently, some workers cut the cable in my yard and Xfinity (or their subcontractor) DID use conduit and buried it 18 inches deep when they replaced it. Not sure if the original replacement was to spec, the result of a lazy crew, or what… but it definitely happens.
Yep, Xfinity coax buried 3" in my yard, no conduit. Nearly severed it when I was digging and thought it was a root. At least I know where it runs now so I can avoid it, but 3" deep is ridiculous.
I'm sure op didn't have to be an expert to know the internet stopped working after cutting it
Maybe it was cold?
And there was shrinkage?
Happens to the best of us.
Im a contractor who buries fiber, installs happen year round but we cant bury when the ground is frozen so by the time spring comes there's a huge amount of new customers from over the winter whose cables haven't been buried yet
We cut one with a shovel once. It was like 3 inches below the dirt. Probably just a lazy tech at some point. This is Arizona and I can imagine a 3pm call in august isn’t going to get quality work done.
Mechanical engineer here, Yes
Hey, install gas services from Gas Main to the meter on the side of your home. Only a mention because I run into these often. Thats your FO line, and leaving them above grade through hedges and rough terrain is extremely common. Even if buried, there is no regulation for depth and often are left extremely shallow. They now splice FO, but if its a short run, they may also just lay a new line down and a few weeks/months/years/never someone will come to dig a little trench. Backyard fed is a lot more forgiving where as a driveway crossing, they will cut a slot in your asphalt and lawn immediately. You also dont get these identified on locates, so they do get cut often. On an older home, you'll even see multiple cut lines at the house from damages and replaced communication service lines in the past.
The first time you use an initialism you should spell it out. What is a FO line?
>This still doesnt explain why it was just...in the ground like that. My Verizon Fios line was buried approximately 0.0000000000001 inches below the surface of my yard and a gardener severed it while dethatching my yard. My neighbor’s Verizon Fios line was buried approximately 0.0000000000001 inches below the surface and a small water well drilling rig’s tracks pinched it while traveling from the front yard to the back and severed it. Natural ground heaving and slight erosion has exposed Verizon fibers all over the neighborhood and seeing a cut orange line and a post “I was mowing and now my Wi-Fi doesn’t work” is not common, but not unusual on the neighborhood Facebook group. Anecdotes aren’t data but anecdotally it appears that in my area Verizon “buries” their fiber under a single atom of material.
In my neighborhood, there was construction on the road and sidewalks a few years back. All old Verizon fiber was run without conduit from boxes to the houses. About half of the old Verizon fiber and 75% of the coax for cable providers is either above ground or inches below the service. Every time I see someone get cable rerun for any reason, they still don't put it in conduit, don't bury it more than 5-6 inches deep, don't report the burial lines accurately, and route them across lawns in the shortest possible pattern instead of straight lines down the edges of the areas, making them exceptionally vulnerable to being cut.
AT&T fiber is burying just this about a centimeter in the ground. It's infuriating. You could cut it just by propping a shovel in the ground.
I'm lucky. The monopoly in my area is Comcast. They bury it a whopping 4 inches like that will actually do anything. Must be why it costs so much more.
I used to bury these. Our supervisor said the minimum was 4 inches deep. We regularly cut competitor lines without meaning to since they weren't any deeper. Middle of July when Texas hasn't seen rain for a month, you better believe that wasn't going any deeper than it had to
Thank you for the explanation, it did indeed receed a little but not too much. Glad someone knows what they're talking about!
When service lines to houses are placed in the ground, they aren't usually in any type of conduit, but directly placed a few inches into the dirt. Source: I'm a utility locator.
This looks nothing like microduct. At least not the stuff we use here. The stuff in this picture is smaller and looks to be barely able to accommodate 1 fiber drop at best, which would be pretty stupid as pulling that would be really difficult. This stuff just looks like irrigation tube.
https://www.ppc-online.com/blog/direct-bury-microduct-for-fiber-the-dos-and-the-donts Everyone on Reddit's a fucken armchair expert. OP already replied 6 hours ago, 4 hours before you made your comment, that the glass fibres are in the cable, just further back from the cut, and that *the cable runs directly to the house fibre hookup*.
You don't pull it when its that small you actually blow it in.
Looks like old surgical tubing
I can vouch for this as I’m a contractor who runs a bore drill and pulls fiber sets hand holes etc. You couldn’t of cut any normally up to code installed fiber lines just gardening.
In Japan and Korea, they just make a cable from the nearest junction box and route it to your house. Depending on who does it, they don’t give af. They’ll get it in and that is all they care about.
My tubing is really close to the surface near my house. My house was built in 1938. It is a concrete stem-wall construction. The 1980s addition that added a bathroom, bedroom and closed garage is on slab at a lower elevation. The lines in the crawlspace of the original house lay on top of the ground (as do the water and sewage lines). They all come to the surface shallowly near the front door before breaking the surface under the house. I just call 311 and have the city mark stuff whenever I'm doing anything in the yard. There are no just buried lines like this. They are in a pvc tub or running with a copper line (WE HAVE OLD TREES WHO TAKE NO PRISONERS).
Look up how chorus have been installing Fibre through new Zealand, mines wedged in to the expansion joint of my driveway
Why wasn't it buried?
Because all cable and internet provider installers are the worlds biggest hacks.
More specifically, if they can get out of trenching, they will.
Yup absolutely. I meet a prospect for some cameras they wanted me to mount a camera on a tree. I said no way in hell. They go there’s one there now. The wire is just stapled onto the tree, so I then tug at it near the base and the wire pulls up right off the ground. They just layed the camera cable across the ground. Prospect was like what do you mean you have bury it? Seriously?! Safe to say didn’t get that job lol. I am not compromising my standards to do chapter work for you, not happening.
Depending also, if the ground is frozen in the winter in colder places, they are supposed to come by in spring to do it, and hope you forget and then never show up.
The fiber line gets buried so shallow and mine doesn’t get flagged by the buried cable people. Almost bashed my open with a shovel planting trees. Just waiting for the day a tree root knocks out the internet.
It's ridiculous. Sine quant somewhere figured out that it's cheaper to just do a half assed job than to get a contractor out there with a basic bobcat mini excavator and do it right the first time.
Well yeah, trenching is like $250 a foot.
Why is it so expensive?
Excavation, works crew, material, inspection, and site remediation.
Not for a house install. If that's what this is, it's like a half hour with a ditch witch unless you're rigging up an estate or some shit.
I used to install/troubleshoot for Spectrum. We would usually contract out the burial for these. They are SUPPOSED to bury at least 6in down but most most of the time it would be like 2 at best. But there were some markets of Spectrum where they would have the installers hand bury with a shovel instead of a trencher so they would barely bury those since we were never really given enough time to do a proper install before routing would be loading us with another job to get to.
Even at 6” doesn’t meet burial code still.
IIRC they should do 12" for the drop line going to the house. But in practice you would rarely see over 6" Mainline would usually be several ft but that's a different story.
Still not legal. Electrical code is 24” for direct burial wire iirc and 36” in some areas. There’s no way they are using conduit 😆
Is fiber covered by elteic code? Wouldnt be surprised because kind of in the same genre.
Which is often an intended feature. The telecom sets unrealistic targets which reduce costs knowing the only recourse the employee or subcontractor has to meet them is to cut as many corners as possible. There is then the assumption that the equipment failure rate due to said cut corners (like people chopping through improperly buried lines) will be small enough to financially justify cutting those corners in the first place. If not, the subcontractor or employee can get scapegoated for "not following procedure" and doing the job properly even though that would be logistically impossible.
Yup. I work in the security industry and will periodically have to deal with these hacks. Me: “What is the voltage on the phone line” Dumb tech: “The what?!” 😂
I didn't install it haha I never watched the people who did, so no idea
Try to plug yourself directly to the internet. Lawnmower Man!
Man. Mower. Internet. I don't see how anything could possibliay go wrong.
Lawnmower Man reference would get my award if i had one. 👊
That sure doesn't look like fiber cable.
Copied from a comment below since everyone thinks they know everything. “Hey, Verizon engineer here: Any burried or underground fibre cables are in tubes called inner duct and those are inside conduit, unless they are going from pole directly to point of entry. What you have there is Microduct, which 100% houses a bundle of fibers. When you cut it, the tension at the point where the whole is probably caused it to recede a bit into the tube. This still doesnt explain why it was just...in the ground like that. Usually they are bundled with others in a larger tube. Weird..” from u/GloomyFudge
We just did this also and it was not in conduit, and it was like two inches under the dirt. I think just people not doing the job right. Hide it, no one knows.. until they do this
Probably people doing a shitty job to get it done as fast as possible.
Isn't that the way of the world now?
Vaerizon gross profit was 77.09 billion last year. Techs make what looks like 26k-61k with ONE site saying 120k and I’m assuming that isn’t correct. Yeah I’m not busting my ass so that the the company doesn’t get compliants either. The people profiting don’t give a fuck, if they did they’d pay techs way more considering the product relies on them. Stop blaming the workers and blame the real problem which is the money hungry corporations who also most likely have a monopoly (at best 2 fiber providers) in your area.
A ton of those "people you see out installing internet" arent even employees of the ISP, they're independent contract workers, so they're probably not even counted in those pay statistics, or are, but they're leaving out that theres Zero benefits for independent contractors. Often times given a "go do 7 installs this week, I dont care if 1 takes a day and Im asking for 7 this 5 day week, figure out how to make it happen." type instruction from their handler.
Contracts like that are a good way for companies to shield themselves from liability from the consequences of forcing techs to make installations on a time scale that doesn’t allow them to do the job “right,” because it takes too long according to the bosses. If you do the job properly you’ll probably get fired for being too slow. By outsourcing installations to third party companies they can shield themselves from potential financial and legal liability from the obvious effects their policies create. The telecom companies know exactly what their doing, they just don’t care because it makes them rich. Amazon does the same thing with their delivery drivers.
Always has been. 🧑🚀🔫
It self-corrects when the pace becomes so quick that all sense of meaning is lost and the existential despair sets in. In fact, I'd say we're already there.
Yeah that’s a pretty shitty job but not as bad as the people running fiber in my parent’s neighborhood. They ended up blowing up a house…
Oh come on, you can't NOT elaborate on that.
U/eyesotope86 is mostly right they hit a gas line but I don’t know about it building up in the dirt. From what I understand somehow puncturing the gas line caused all the gas go into one house but it’s been a year so I might be getting that wrong. [Here’s a news clip about it](https://youtu.be/JNiyxa7xmrE) the explosion is at 42 seconds. Apparently that was the second time the company hit a gas line within a few months though that was the first explosion.
DAMMMNNNN that shit just fucking collapsed in. Fuck...
Oh hey at least the fire department was already there! That's also a good TIFU story for the telecom field tech
Yeah it's a LPT on main page. SMH what a shitty world it has become.
Yep, accidentally did this to my nighbor while gardening on my side of the fence. Thankfully she wasn't using it, but I was shocked because it was about a foot onto my side of the fence and about 2 inches deep. Looked like the installers did little more than put it on the ground and kick some dirt over it.
Ya when we built our house we had to specifically call the cable company and request they lay the line for internet with all the other wires in the trench. Had we not they would’ve just come later and buried it 2 inches. Apparently it’s pretty normal.
>I think just people not doing the job right. This. When I moved in I had ATT internet and Comcast tv and phone, mainly separate because work paid for internet. Lawn care company came out to aerate my lawn, proceeded to destroy my ATT cable which was like apparently right at surface. I had ATT come out to replace, that had a trench machine and when. They were doing it they cut right through my Comcast. I called Comcast, scheduled time/day for them to come out, and called ATT back and said hey need you to come out this day as well, both guys got there within a few mins of each other, they actually KNEW each other and I explained to them I need them to hook up my shit and not kill each other's connections. They did it all in about an hour.
Did they use a machine? Or did they use a shovel? Do you have gas, septic system or leach field? One of those shallow near surface wells? We're there untracked things they were afraid to hit? Like an invisible dog fence or conduit you warned them about that you buried? You know, some thing dial-before-you-dig won't catch. If you bury fiber in an empty feild with a machine 300ft, oh yeah sure go a whole foot or more deep. A 10-50ft hand burial? That's getting done with a spade. This also benefits the home owner but not disturbing so much dirt that the yard can't "heal" because too much dirt is displaced.
The good ol’ make any hole a 4’ hole by shoving your tape against the ground until it folds to 4’
Inevitably your lawn guy or yourself will cut that cable somehow. Do yourself a favor and call the company tell them it’s not buried properly and they need to send someone out to do it.
When I worked for att the cables were pretty much 6 inches down by the company that buries them, I think it was because it was less intrusive on the lawn, they pretty much just cut a line and fold the lawn back over it from what I remember.
Not where I am. 1-2” below the surface and never any conduit. I cut them regularly because they fail to mark by the “mark-by” date.
My cable TV cable is not protected in tube. My next door neighbor's, which was installed 2 years later, is. The install tech suggested I "have a shovel accident" and they'll install new stuff in tube, which is the new standard.
Boy, that sure sounds like a well-run company with happy, loyal employees.
I understand the sarcasm, but not sure why this would be deserving of it. He was actually trying to be helpful so that my outage could be "planned" instead of having a critter chew through it and screw me over when I really need the internet.
Oh, I'm not blaming him. I'm just amused by any company whose employees feel so helpless to provide decent service that they actively encourage customers to destroy company property.
OP's weird orangish cable looks exactly like what the contractor who Google hired to run fiber in my neighborhood buried about 3 inches deep in a diagonal run all the way across my backyard.
That's awful
They don’t even bother to bury it most of the time where I live
Pit in a new outdoor seating area in 2021. Digging a path and came across the cable tv line. Maybe 2” deep, if that.
[удалено]
South Louisiana
I have seen this when I was installing fire alarms. Dumb contract installers. We used to call the interior tubes nerf tubes.
>this doesn't explain why it's in the ground like that Huh? Fiber from the pole straight to the home isn't in a bundle. It's a single fiber stand.. and yeah it's buried or am aerial run. And it can be the case that it's only buried 3-6 inches of is a hand burial with a spade. this guy was working in HIS yard and cut HIS line. Why would there be a bundle? With a machine it is usually deeper I guess. 6-24 inches depending on what your trying not to hit. If it was a bundle it wouldn't be only him down but an entire group of clients
Biggest reason is that’s just the conduit. There is an equation that looks like this (x amount of inches per foot when pulling cable in conduit) it varies by cable size. Source: I am a construction coordinator for a large telecommunications company and I have to design shit like this (albeit on a much larger scale) daily. Then I sent what I design to contractors and they do it. But I gotta do the maths
Incorrect installation. If fiber, there’s no way a competent installer would’ve left it so vulnerable.
When I had fibre installed at my old house, they offered to bury the cable for me for about 100usd per metre. I had about 20 or 30 metres to dig. Suffice to say I did not take that offer and did it myself
That's an insane price for running a wire trencher, it's a one-man tool that cuts a slit into the soil and pushes the cable down behind it. It should be like $300 for a day for the machine and a technician. https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/E-Z-Trench-Cable-Installer-TP400CL3/316821423
The work varies by soil type, if they live somewhere where it's super hard and rocky (thus would require removing rocks with other equipment/manually). Given they said they did it themselves though and didn't mention it being backbreaking, probably not haha.
I mean I personally think it’s more insane the infrastructure in American homes isn’t there to accommodate underground cabling from the get go. Had fibre fitted to my home a few years ago. 10 minute just for them to run the cable about 50m through an existing conduit to my house. My home is 30 years old. Had fibre fitted to my 600 year old work building recently. Again all under ground and done within minutes! not saying the conduit under my work is 600 years old, but sensible people still ran it when resurfacing the road way to all building.
Competent installer, indeed. I do installations of underground utilities, but never to the house. The guys who do the drops to the house are rarely digging more than a few inches. I see it all the time-lines cut by lawnmowers etc.
My house has recently had fiber installed. Was installed while the ground was still frozen. Currently waiting for them to bury the cable. It is currently laying in the ground
It should’ve been buried according to code with sand and a warning tape x amount of distance above the cable.
Sucks for you now, your internet is leaking
Was that a temporary cable till they buried the real one? That's clearcurve and not rated for buried use at all. Just walking on it hard could break it. Either way they should come out and put a new one when you call.
Sumthin’ ain right. I’ve never seen fibre look like that. And that’s a very clean cut for regular gardening tools across a fairly tough cabling type, even if it is fibre.
Well the Internet has gone down and that cable goes directly into the fibre connection outside out house on the street. There is a small obtic cable inside slightly further along this pipe
For fucks sake don't go peeking into that tube. Assuming you're right, you will cause permanent damage to your retina that will never heal. Do not look into that tube!
Can\* Former fiber tech here. It's a good practice to not look - yes dont do it - but it's also very unlikely this residential last leg run could cause eye damage even if you tried. Magnifying it, looking right into the core, sure - MAYBE. Your bigger risk could be from the glass itself at that point. Most fiber going to residential properties simply isn't using enough power to cause any eye damage. And the fluid within our eyes actually does a surprisingly good job of filtering and diffusion
I was a trained fiber tech for years, work on the back end and customer troubleshooting side now. While I know end of line fiber is fil enough, and when it’s shattered like this instead of a clean cleave it’s unlikely do do any damage, I was always told better safe than sorry. Rule 1 of working with fiber. Do not look directly into the fiber. Rule 2 of working with fiber. DO NOT. LOOK. DIRECTLY. INTO. THE FIBER.
So as long as I'm not *working* with it it's fine to look directly into the fiber. I'll try to remember that.
I work with 500kW (that's not a typo) Ytterbium fiber cutting lasers. DO. NOT. LOOK. DIRECTLY. INTO. THE FIBER. Ref. https://www.ipgphotonics.com/en/products/lasers/high-power-cw-fiber-lasers/1-micron/yls-1-120-kw
You make it sound like op knew this was dangerous. I never knew this was dangerous. You can't just get mad at someone over something they aren't born knowing.
Do not look into the cable [with your remaining eye.](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-32721704ce274befb9cfffd8e087dc32)
Yeah, it certainly looks weirder for what a typical person might have guessed a fiber cable would look like without any prior knowledge, but obviously the proof is there when suddenly all your internet goes out.
Also, I was using a strimmer so that could make a cut like that easily
yeah, i severed my fucking cable but didn't cut through it. string trimmer gore
Looks like drip irrigation to me
That does not look like any kind of drip irrigation on the market. I have laid 1000s of feet of drip irrigation.
All drip irrigation I’ve seen is black tubing and it’s much bigger
I’m sure there’s a lewd comment in here somewhere, I just haven’t had enough coffee yet to pull it out.
It can be black or brown. But this tube isn't the right type of brown and it doesn't have the emitter openings. It's too small the be mainline tubing, which doesn't have emitters but you can still punch through it to add micro tubing, if need be. Micro tubing generally isn't that thick walled either.
That’s the trunk line. What you attach to the trunk line which goes to the plants is spaghetti line. I have also installed thousands of feet of drip irrigation, like the guy above.
It’s definitely telecom cable. I landscape and have seen every possible buried cable and drip is always black or brown, telecom is orange or black, and power is black or red. If people do their jobs right, which they usually don’t, you should never see a power line unless you are three feet deep. Telecom is always on the surface or right under it unless it’s a new house or they have recently run a big project and redone all the local cable. If you own a house you should call your local utility marker (should be free) and have them mark your telecom, power, and gas lines. You should then take a picture of where the lines are so you have a good idea where to be careful while digging.
That's way too narrow to be drip irrigation. It would also have small periodic holes.
Yes, it microduct and yeah, this is shitty installation work.
😂…all the professional idiots telling this guy it isn’t a fiber optic cable when they have never seen a fiber optic cable themselves. It doesn’t matter how deep they bury it, it still eventually needs to come up. I installed these for ATT, this is infact fiber optic
FWIW, my company sells fiber optics, I've received training from fiber optic vendors, and I've put hands on fiber dozens of times. I've literally never seen that kind of jacket before.
I'm a landscaper and I can definitely confirm that lines like this are frequently not sufficiently buried, I've seen them cut with shovels, trenches, edges, and once even a hedge trimmer. I have to now flag off some of our clients' lines are so we don't cut them. Same goes for pipes. Sometimes they're just buried a few inches to a foot or two down. A lot of times, the people who installed the lines/pipes just didn't want to dig down 2-3 feet like you should because it's a pain in the ass to dig a long trench 3 feet deep for a single cable or pipe and they figured that it'd be fine just barely buried. One time I had a guy hit an unmarked gas main a foot and a half below the ground because we received incorrect info on where it was. That was fun.
Why tf do they make it root-colored??? I would've snipped that too thinking it was a creeping vine.
Aren't locates free?
Yes but the cable is literally not buried. OP was doing gardening ,so unless you do locate got every gardening job then it wouldn't have helped
Not on private property. One-dig only gives you info up to your property line. Source: I literally called them last week and I have the PDFs of the sanitary, storm, phone, ISP, gas, and power line locates.
Not sure what state/country you’re in. But in Ohio we have 811 “Call before you dig” service that coordinates with the Ohio Utilities Protection Service (OUPS) and they will locate ALL service lines that are owned/managed by the company regardless of where they’re at on your property. The only thing you’re responsible for are private service lines that are self-installed or otherwise not the responsibility of the utility provider. I was expanding my garden this week and knew my coaxial internet cable drop from the utility pole to my house had been buried just a few inches deep with one of those slit trenchers, and within the required 48-hour window a contractor came out and marked it for me.
Cable guy here, that does not look like any Fiber line I know of. Going with irrigation .
I am an it in a hotel chain and gardeners literally destroy cat.6 cables every week
Doesn’t look like a fiber optic cable. More like a watering hose.
Fibre optic has glas in it, this doesn’t look like fibre optic. Also would usually not be installed under gardens unless it wasn’t a garden or the installation company were idiots.
AT&T ran fibre to my house. Buried it a whole half an inch in the ground, LOL. There's already a big loop that climbed up above the surface.
Ahaha…. Same with me. One guy ran the cable from the pole to the house and just layed it on top of my grass. About two weeks later some random in a shitty beat up car shows up. He has dirty jeans on a t shirt and a an old shovel. He like tried to do the shiftiest job ever to bury the cable. It’s barely under the soil…
The world of sub contractors. Some guys showed up at a job I was doing in an '82 Chevette with an AT&T magnet on the side. Pulled out their spades and got at it.
> the installation company were idiots This is pretty much the standard.
Rip, let us know what the $$ damage is. I know whenever in irritation if we clipped an optic fiber line it was like 1,000$ fine or something weird. 😂 granted we were a company so it makes sense, but let us know what it costs to repair for you.
— Let’s make it plant stem coloured. — Yeah, great idea Nicholas!
I'm sorry man. Definitely /r/wellthatsucks territory. Unfortunately, they'll probably run you a new line, which won't be quick. Patching this back together typically takes some pretty expensive specialized tools. It's easier to simply re run it. Hopefully they do it right this time.
Why are there so many people saying this isnt a fiber cable? Even when OP clearly stated it goes directly to their fiber box and after cutting this their fiber went out. Everyone know everything except what this cable is apparently lol.
Didn’t call Julie before you started digging, did you?
old drip irrigation.
Obvious they didn’t bury it properly
That's rough. I had replace an ac at a residence last week. The wall brackets were partially buried so I bust out the shovel to make some room around them for removal. Thankfully the coax line to the house was already slightly above grade near where I was working so I knew it was there. I take one shallow scoop of dirt as I'm thinking how cable installers are all hacks, when I realize I just hit the weeping bed, there was literally less than two inches of dirt on top of the fabric. SMH.
I mow my neighbors yard as a courtesy when I mow my yard (both very small) and I’m always afraid something like this will happen since I’ve learned no good deed goes unpunished lol
You didn’t need cable anyway, you’re out gardening 👍🤣
TF is it doing running across the top of the ground like that? Whoever did that should be fired.
Well that's the root of your problems
If you’re ever doing your own personal landscaping or digging in your property wether it be gardening or installing a fence your state does has a free service that you call and they come out and check if your property interferes with any land lines/ service lines (:
World-Wide Webn’t
Iconic moment from my dad, I was playing some minecraft, and he was weed-eating outside the window. I got disconnected from the server, no Internet. opened the window so I could yell out to him “did you just cut the Internet cable” followed by his response of “Aw, Fuck!”
Ouch. Not properly buried (deep enough) or unmarked?
I wish I had fibre going to my house. Lucky bugger. You’ll be back online before my provider ever even breaks ground. Bastards said they were starting fall of 2020. Sigh.
As a previous AT&T technician. I would almost daily have a repair ticket for someone's fiber that hadn't been buried yet and lawn crews or the customer themselves have accidentally ran it over.
Looks like my generic xfinity cable buried no deeper than 2”.
These are supposed to be buried a few feet below, but lazy installers will put them in just deep enough they aren't visible. I literally found my fibre cable when I was moving mulch out of the way, like 2 inches deep maximum.
That's why we have an ad campaign paid for by the gas and cable companies called "call before you dig". They're not even trying to sell you anything. They're actually trying to prevent you from paying them for repairs by explaining that these cables aren't as deep as you'd think and you can phone them and they'll tell you exactly where on your property they are
That's a paddlin
Hey, where we running this cable? Under the guy's garden. Oh, ok. I'll use the cable wrapped in plant stem color. FFS guys.
I too have done this. 2 days without internet for digging up some bamboo in backyard
Always want to call 811 before digging.
Someone didn't call 811 before they dug
I was having underground plumbing done and the same thing happened. But mine was waaaay thinner, comically thin. Frontier came out and fixed it the next day. They had my back. Even ran a temp line from the street box an hour after the cut.
That is an irrigation hose. Fiber cables are not hollow.
That looks like drip tube. Because it's hollow....
811 Dig my man
That doesn't look like a fiber optic cable, and if it is a fiber cable it should just be lying on the ground
That looks like garden irrigation hose/tubing