Fibre pipes for Dundee sewer system

Dundee has a thriving technology and digital entertainment industry and will be the first Scottish city to benefit from H2O’s Fibrecity network. Work will begin within the next six months and the majority of the fibre will be put in the sewers using H2O’s patented FS (Fibre Optical Cable Underground Sewer) System at the company’s own expense.
 
Fibrecity will bring fibre connectivity to more than 55,000 homes in Dundee. This is in addition to the 88,000 homes it will be connecting in Bournemouth, making Fibrecity the largest Fibre to the Home (FTTH) project in Europe.
Dundee City Council has linked two city centre offices using H2O’s ultra high speed network in order to share information quickly and simply, and was keen for Dundee to be the first Scottish Fibrecity.
 
Convener of Dundee City Council's economic development committee, Joe Morrow, said: "Dundee is already a recognised leader, not just in biotechnology and digital media, but in the use of technology to benefit its communities. I am sure that the plans  will provide even more opportunities for the business community in Dundee to gain competitive advantage, and to keep the city at the forefront of the broadband economy.
 
"This £30m private sector investment and other technological advances being pioneered in Dundee, cement the city's moves towards becoming a hub for information age products and services."

The benefits of Fibrecity are vast and will help to attract new businesses and investment into the city. Other benefits include:
• Businesses will be able to transfer files and documents between offices with no time delays
• Greater bandwidth will enable people to work from home more easily, allowing flexible working
• Households can benefit from faster broadband, up to 100 Mbps, and so can have access to much higher quality services such as telephone calls over the Internet, video streaming and IPTV.

Elfed Thomas, CEO of H2O Networks said: “Dundee is the most densely populated city in Scotland,

but this project will see us bringing connectivity to more remote areas as Fibrecity is an all inclusive solution.”
 
“Many households and broadband customers have insufficient connectivity bandwidths because they are attached to legacy networks deployed in the 20th Century that just can’t cope with demand. Our solution is a totally new
network that does not try to connect old and new cables. With speeds in excess of 100 Mbps, it brings us right into the 21st Century and beyond.”
 
Fibrecity deployments are far kinder to the environment than traditional methods and upto 80% faster to deploy, as the sewer is a ready-made duct which means the expensive and environmentally unfriendly method of digging up the roads is unnecessary and disruption to the road infrastructure is kept to a minimum.
 
Chris Banks, commercial director, Scottish Water said: “Scottish Water is pleased that Dundee has successfully bid to become the first Fibrecity in Scotland. H2O’s innovative programme of using the waste water network to channel high-speed Internet is a smart way of limiting the environmental impact and traffic issues normally associated with installing and maintaining utility networks. We will be working with H2O to give them access to our network and will help facilitate this exciting project.”
 
Where the sewers are not viable, H2O Networks will install the cable using its patented BMD (Blown Mini Duct) system. With this method, a small, 20 millimetres wide slot is channelled into the road in order to lay the cable. This is not a civil dig and will cause minimal disruption to the local area.

Webs: http://www.h2o-networks.uk.net/
http://www.scottishwater.co.uk

                                                                                                                    Sewer cover. Courtesy:whathifi.com