Pultruded glass fibre reinforced plastics (or GRP) rod is being increasingly used in the area of cable design, used for strength members in optical fibre cables. The possibility of failure by the process of stress corrosion has resulted in the need to determine the reliability of the dielectric cables when in service. The viability of life predictions being made from the study of stress corrosion fracture surfaces is investigated. The production of static fatigue data for composite materials is needed to enable any accurate predictions to be made.