How are severed phone lines, the ones on utility poles, repaired when they are severed
A cable for POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) service may have up to 200 or 250 pairs, if I recall correctly. The pairs are all colour-coded, with 25 different colour combinations, then a bundle of 25 pairs are wrapped with a coloured tape, and several bundles, each with a different colour tape, are used to build a large cable. (numbers may be wrong - it's a long time since I worked for a Telco)

I recall seeing technicians camped out in tents on the phone lines doing the splicing - haven't seen that for many years.