The dirty side of a broadband roll-out
While the will they, wont they debate over the future of high speed broadband rages on in the UK, one company has come up with an innovative, but dirty, way of getting things moving.
“H20 networks has been in negotiations with water firms for the last five years and began rolling out its fibre-via-sewers network - known as Focus (Fibre Optical Cable Underground Sewer) in 2003.”
So far the universities in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Bournemouth are enjoying high-speed fiber connections with speeds of up to 20Gbps, and a number of council offices around the UK are also enjoying high speed internet.
Businesses and consumers may be next up if plans to roll out the service in 2008 work out. Not only creative given the infrastructure limitations in the UK, but cheaper as well, by a big margin:
“It costs between £150 and £200 per metre to dig up the roads and our costs are nowhere near that,” he said.
“It cost Napier University in the order of £80,000 to have a 1.2km fibre network. With a traditional fibre network these costs would have been in the region of £400,000 to £1.2m.”
Via [BBC]
Written by Chris Marshall for Gadgetell, 2007. |
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