Totally taking the Michael here but you’ve always been so helpful and it’s slightly network related…Does this look like a fibre cable? It certainly doesn’t look like a standard BT twisted pair cable:
The gardeners at a client have cut through the “phone” cable and they’ve got a wedding on…
Doesn’t look like fiber. It reminds more of an ordinary power cable but the colors are odd tho: “Wiring Color Codes”
It does look weird doesn’t it - didn’t think it was fibre. I don’t recognise the colours at all for UK. It looks like four wires with a couple of strengthening bare wires plus a ripcord. From memory a POTS cable has two twisted pair cables so this could be used but as there are three wires and a single orange, working out which is which is going to be tricky!
They’ve managed to bodge it together so it is electrical, not optical. You do find cable like this - maybe bad picture and there are four different colours with banding.
They have two wedding barns - the gardeners have done the same at both sites!
3-phase AC?
I Concur with tangent. The Orange/brown cable is ground/null wire. The white could have each a other stripe for phase one, two or three.
There is an extra unprotected wire in it and the fibers you see, is a string that helps the cable when being pulled through tubes/pipes.
My advice is that you first of all hire an electrician.
Secondly, I’m pretty sure it’s not a 3-phase outdoor cable since there is no protecting shield, the wires are to thin and dont meet the requirements on color coding.
However, if you know how to use a voltmeter, first check that there is no high voltage attached. Then use a signal tracker to locate the endpoints of the cable.
It is standard UK Openreach drop wire which can run upto 68 metres unsupported overhead. Thick UV resistant polythene sheath, ripcord, three steel strength members (one uninsulated, two with cream insulation) and a single signal pair coloured orange & white, either Dropwire 11 with 0.5mm diameter signal pair or Dropwire 12 with 0.9mm diameter signal pair.
If you have a two-pair drop wire the second signal pair is green & black, Dropwire 10B with 0.5mm diameter signal pairs.
“Fibre” in as much that it supports FTTC / VDSL2 broadband, but not actual fibre.
The site owners should contact their communications provider who can book a repair with Openreach, it won’t be cheap but the gardeners or their insurance can pay for it.
That’s what I recommended too 
He’s onsite now…
See I knew that somebody here would know the exact answer - thanks.
The site owners should contact their communications provider who can book a repair with Openreach, it won’t be cheap but the gardeners or their insurance can pay for it.
This is the sob story bit - the internet also supplies the house and their television. Client has three poorly children and he was on the point of booking into a hotel We’re about to head into four day holiday so chances of OpenReach rushing out sounds low.
Since it seems to be a total clster-fk when it comes to the kids that may explode any minute ( 
), why not try some quick-n-dirty solutions by just twisting the cables together in different ways until it hopefully works again.
Since it seems to be a total clster-fk when it comes to the kids that may explode any minute
Quite - I don’t think my parents would have worried about us if the TV was off for a day or too. Problem is that kids probably can’t function without internet these days But we really are going off topic now LOL
Totally agree! Weaning the children off the internet requires careful planning and it’s not something I would dare to do myself without professional help! 