When students at the University of Aberdeen return to college in autumn 2007 after their summer break, they might find their broadband connection is coming from a rather unexpected source.
Over the summer holidays, the university has been running a series of fibre cables from one area of the campus to the student village and accommodation area through the underground sewer networks that are already in place and in use. The university previously used a microwave link but as the Head in Infrastructure Dr Brian Robertson stated: “The microwave connection is relatively low bandwidth and one of the issues is the trees keep growing and are in the line of sight. We needed a hard-wire connection.”
The sewer system claims to be 80% faster than the existing methods and has been developed by H20 Networks, whose slogan is humorously Using the past to connect the future. It has access to over 360,000 miles of tunnelling networks across the UK. It uses the old but very reliable Victorian sewer systems and claims to reduce road digging by up to 80%. In the next year, H2O Networks are aiming to lay over 200km of dark fibre links or networks within the UK.
In remote areas of Scotland, Scottish Water have also taken to the idea and are beginning work on laying cables in sewers in August 2007 at a business park in Rosyth in Fife. It is also hoped that the other 24,000 miles of sewage tunnels will be utilised presently. The Commercial Director of Scottish Water Chris Banks commented, “We are not attempting to become communications experts but, for the first time, we are playing landlord to the real communication experts and allowing our sewer network to play host to a new communications infrastructure”.
BT are the principle competitors in this area and already around the Docklands area in London Thames Water and the Lattice Group have begun laying new cables in the sewers with further plans for central and west London.
Sewer cabling systems for broadband are not a new thing for the rest of Europe. There are currently two large operators leading the charge in Paris, using the city’s sewage systems in the hopes of making the French capital a standard bearer for communications in major cities across the world. With the system already in place, in Paris as well as many other parts of Europe since the dawn of the millennium, it seems only fitting that the UK catches up sooner rather than later.
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