Telecommunications Line Installers and Repairers
Installation, Maintenance, and Repair
Most days start with travel to a customer's premises to install, connect, test, or adjust telecommunications equipment, including fiber-optic cable. Cables are spliced with hand tools, epoxy, or mechanical gear, then strung between poles, towers, or trenches and pulled to the right tension. Finding a fault means inspecting and testing lines, recording the results, and measuring signal strength at utility poles. Getting to the cable can involve a bucket truck, climbing poles or ladders, or entering tunnels, trenches, or crawl spaces. It suits people who like mixed indoor-and-outdoor repair, tracing signal problems, and explaining the install or fix to customers.
Typical education: High School Diploma or GED
Annual Median Wage in Field (2025)
$74'330
Median Wage Market Position
$74'330
What you might do
- Install and connect customer telecommunications equipment
- String cables between poles and buildings
- Splice cables with tools or epoxy
- Test cables and record how they perform
- Measure signal strength at utility poles
- Work from buckets, poles, trenches, or crawl spaces
Skills that matter
- Explaining new service at the customer site
- Signal-strength checks at utility poles
- Cable splicing with epoxy or hand tools
- Fault finding from recorded test results
- Stringing and tensioning outdoor cables
- Listening to customers describe service problems
AI & the future of this role
Pulling fiber and fixing outdoor cable plant still requires climbing, splicing, and customer-site troubleshooting in varied conditions. Diagnostic apps may speed fault finding, yet network buildout and storm repairs are likely to keep field technicians busy.
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Includes O*NET® 30.3 Database information by USDOL/ETA under CC BY 4.0; modified by LostInCareer. Wage/outlook from BLS. Attribution details