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I recently saw two men open up the sidewalk in a major German city. It seemed they dug out this device

enter image description here

Both men worked for a networking technology company, so I hope this is on topic here.

What is this device?

Zac67
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Stefan
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  • huh, I also saw them doing this outside my home. Wonder if it's a city-wide or country-wide upgrade, and if so, what for. – user253751 Aug 28 '21 at 08:28

2 Answers2

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Connecting two fiber trunks is a tedious process. Those are splice cassettes for optical fiber - each single fiber is fusion spliced and looped into one of the cassettes for protection. Afterwards the whole box is sealed and buried or put in a cabinet.

Zac67
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They're a fiber splicing crew. The white plastic trays are used to organize fiber connections.

A waterproof enclosure will protect the whole assembly from debris when their job is finished, and the enclosure will be stowed somewhere, e.g. in an underground chamber or an above-ground pedestal.

Jeff Wheeler
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