{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/telecommunications-line-installers-and-repairers/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Telecommunications Line Installers and Repairers",
    "soc_code": "49-9052",
    "category": "Trades",
    "us_employment": 97720,
    "median_annual_wage": 74330
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 66,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": true,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 18,
    "embodiment": 20,
    "liability_shield": 6,
    "trust_premium": 10,
    "judgment_accountability": 12
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Fusion-splicing 288-count ribbon in a flooded vault, lashing strand across a road crossing with traffic control up, and chasing a bridge tap through fifty-year-old paper-insulated copper are tasks with no digital substitute — the software gains are in dispatch, GIS route design and automated OTDR trace reading, which trim planning hours but leave every field step intact, hence 18 rather than a mid-teens score.",
    "embodiment": "Free-climbing or bucket-lifting to 40 feet, working aerial spans in wind and ice, entering confined-space manholes with gas monitoring, and pulling duct in trenches during post-storm restoration is uncontrolled-environment physical labor with no controlled-facility fraction to dilute it — this is the 20 case, not a 14.",
    "liability_shield": "There is no state licence to install fiber; CDL, OSHA 1910.268 tower/pole training, aerial lift and confined-space certs plus employer-specific qualification are what gate the work, and when a span comes down or a cut hits a 911 trunk the carrier and the contractor absorb it, not the tech's personal credential — that's certification-preferred territory, a 6.",
    "trust_premium": "Most outside-plant work is done to a work order with no customer present, and the relationships that matter are with the crew, the local inspector and the ISP's construction manager rather than a paying client who asks for you by name.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Calls like whether a marginal splice enclosure will survive another winter, when to cut over a live trunk carrying business circuits, and whether a storm-damaged pole is safe to climb are made alone at the pole with real consequences, but standards handbooks, NESC clearances and network engineering specs bound most of them — real discretion inside a defined envelope, so 12 not 16."
  },
  "rationale": "The core of this job — climbing poles and towers, pulling and lashing aerial cable, splicing fiber in a bucket truck or a wet handhole, tracing faults in a hundred-year-old copper plant, and restoring service after storms — is hands-on work in uncontrolled outdoor environments that current robotics cannot touch. AI erodes the paperwork edges: work orders, route planning, OTDR trace interpretation, and outage triage are increasingly software-assisted. The modal worker is a field technician whose diagnostic judgment on a live network with angry customers waiting is the durable part.",
  "outlook": "Federal broadband funding and continued fiber and small-cell build-out keep field demand solid through the early 2030s; automation trims the dispatch and documentation layer, not the bucket truck.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Expansion of state/federal rules making a named, qualified person personally accountable for work near energized power conductors and on shared poles — e.g. tighter enforcement of NESC/OSHA 1910.268 qualified-worker requirements, or state one-call/811 damage-prevention statutes (Texas, California) that assign fault to an identified locator/installer for fiber cuts and pole-attachment violations. Also FCC pole-attachment 'one-touch make-ready' regimes where the attaching entity's certified technician must sign off on completed make-ready work.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State licensing of low-voltage/telecom contractors extended to individual technician certification with a sign-off requirement on E911, RF-safety, and public-safety-network (FirstNet) installs — several states already license limited-energy electricians; adding a personal-liability signature line would be the change to watch.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Formal designation of the on-site technician as the person who authorizes cutovers, service restoration priority, and 'safe to energize' calls during storm restoration — codified in CWA/IBEW contract language or utility mutual-aid protocols that require a human field decision-maker before automated systems re-route or re-energize.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: as route planning, OTDR interpretation, and outage triage move to software, the residual job concentrates on non-scriptable work — legacy copper fault isolation, storm restoration in damaged plant, and coordination with power crews on jointly-owned poles. Already visible in the split between dispatch/NOC automation and field craft. Little headroom, score is near ceiling.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 1
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "task_resistance (18) and embodiment (20) are effectively maxed; the real exposure is headcount, not task substitution — fiber overbuild pace, copper retirement, and prefab/blown-fiber techniques change how many technicians are needed regardless of dimension scores. Trust premium has no plausible route: end customers do not choose or pay for a specific human line tech, and buyers are carriers procuring on cost.Your response format:```json\n{"
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "mean of two independent runs; verdict robust to rounding",
    "outcome": "rescored",
    "run_totals": [
      67,
      62
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "SAFE",
      "EXPOSED"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 107090,
        "wage": 55060
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 118200,
        "wage": 58280
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 120900,
        "wage": 56750
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 122480,
        "wage": 58870
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 101530,
        "wage": 60190
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 107670,
        "wage": 60580
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 98950,
        "wage": 64640
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 98360,
        "wage": 70500
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 97720,
        "wage": 74330
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -8.7,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}