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Boston Career Explorer

Installation, Maintenance, and Repair

Telecommunications Line Installers and Repairers

Install and repair telecommunications cable, including fiber optics.

Also called: Cable Splicer, Cable Tech (Cable Technician), Cable TV Tech (Cable Television Technician), Combination Technician (Combination Tech), Fiber Optic Splicer, Field Service Technician

Compare with my current job (Commercial and Industrial Designers)
Median pay in Greater Boston
$103,090
$49.56/hr
Jobs in Greater Boston
1,730
Massachusetts 2024–2034
+0.9%
220 openings a year
Typical U.S. entry requirement
High school diploma or equivalent
plus Long-term on-the-job training

Greater Boston: Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro area, May 2025. Growth and openings: Massachusetts statewide projection.

Pay range in Greater Boston

Yearly pay in Greater Boston by percentile
10th25thMedian75th90th
$57,830$78,570$103,090$106,150$113,310

10% of workers earn less than the first figure and 10% earn more than the last.

What you’d do

  • Splice cables, using hand tools, epoxy, or mechanical equipment.
  • Inspect or test lines or cables, recording and analyzing test results, to assess transmission characteristics and locate faults or malfunctions.
  • Clean or maintain tools or test equipment.
  • Set up service for customers, installing, connecting, testing, or adjusting equipment, such as digital subscriber line modems.
  • Access specific areas to string lines, or install terminal boxes, auxiliary equipment, or appliances, using bucket trucks, climbing poles or ladders, or entering tunnels, trenches, or crawl spaces.
  • Lay underground cable directly in trenches, or string it through conduits running through trenches.

AI and this job

AI exposure: how much of this job’s work AI tools can do or help with, based on national research. It is not a forecast of job loss.

Lower exposure12 of 100

The index averages three national research measures, each shown as a percentile of all jobs:

  • AIOE 13
  • Language-model AIOE 15
  • GPTs-are-GPTs 8

Observed AI use today: Little or none (Anthropic Economic Index)

AI exposure for this job is lower, and observed AI use is little or none. AI tools may help analyze test results or find faults in lines. Splicing cable, climbing poles, working in tight spaces, and setting up service at customers' sites are hands-on tasks that AI tools do not do.

Likely to change

  • Analyzing line and cable test results
  • Spotting faults and malfunctions

Still relies on people

  • Splicing cables by hand
  • Setting up service at customer sites

Written with AI from the data on this page. Check with a career coach before making a decision.

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Training near Boston

College and school programs in the Boston metro area that lead to this job, with 2023-24 completions (IPEDS).

No college programs near Boston map to this job. Many people enter through on-the-job training or apprenticeship.

Talk to a career coach at the Office of Workforce Development about apprenticeships and City partner programs.

Related occupations

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