Chamber Lid Removal Proves Tricky for Spectrum Internet FTTP Team

A team of engineers working for UK ISP Spectrum Internet, which has been busy installing their own “full fibre” (FTTP) broadband network across parts of South Wales and the South West of England, recently ended up biting off a little more than they could chew while trying to open up a corroded underground chamber.

Ordinarily gaining access to an underground chamber should be a fairly simple task, which is usually accomplished by simply lifting the covering lid off (hand tools and a little elbow greases are often enough). Unfortunately Spectrum’s team comically got a little bit more than they bargained when attempting to do this in the village of St Athan (Vale of Glamorgan).

The operator, which had been installing fibre optic cables in the area, soon found they needed to access one of the local chambers but no matter what they tried the lid simply refused to budge. Eventually they opted to hook the lid up to a 7.5 tonne crane and this worked, albeit perhaps a little too well given the huge slab of concrete attached 🙂 .

“This one made us a laugh a little. The chamber lid had corroded so badly the bond was stronger than the concrete poured around the chamber lid,” said a spokesperson to ISPreview.co.uk. Spectrum are now running a Caption Competition, which encourages people to caption the image with something funny (e.g. “You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!“).

You should be able to post your caption to their Twitter feed, Facebook page or Linkedin page. The best caption could win an Amazon Echo smart speaker, says Spectrum. Meanwhile locals in the South Wales and the Bristol area are being encouraged to contact the ISP, particularly if they are struggling with poor broadband speeds, because they might be able to benefit from the ISP’s Gigabit Voucher scheme.