Just in case there wasn't enough sh*t on the Internet already.
Next - Internet outages due to the latest fatberg being removed and more chances for a JCB to cut through connectivity.
In order to meet its full-fibre pledges, the UK government is examining the possibility of giving broadband firms access to more than a million kilometres of underground infrastructure owned by other utility firms: including electricity, gas, water, and sewerage networks. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport ( …
Potentially, less chance of something being cut, but with the associated factor that if one utility is cut, several get taken out.
Urban roads (including pavements) are often full of sub-surface utilities, making digging new holes tricky. Add in to that that not every utility is recorded, and even where they are recorded, the positioning isn't always that accurate. So utility strikes happen.
There are various ways to scan for sub-surface services before you dig. I'm not sure how well fibre is detected by these methods (Cat-and-Genny wouldn't be much use; no idea how effective Ground penetrating Radar is with fibre).
Running your fibre alongside something else that's more detectable may actually prove an effective way of reducing cable strikes.
But just getting people to properly record where their infrastructure is would be a good start.
Underground fibre is usually (always?) run by first burying a relatively large diameter pipe, and then blowing the fibre through it. This allows for far easier additional or upgraded fibre to be run later. So the detectability would depend more on the material that the pipe is made of rather than the fibre.
If the design is sensible, such pipes would have some sort of easily detectable marker built into the pipe, such as a metallic strip.
Gigaclear just chop into the verge on the side of the road and drop in some presumably armoured fibre (which may be detectable with one of those metal detector dinguses that you see civil engineers swinging about before breaking ground). I don't think I saw any form of conduit when they laid their stuff in the village I Was living in, so I doubt it is ever upgradeable without replacing it.
"first burying a relatively large diameter pipe, and then blowing the fibre through it."
I've seen construction electricians do this for power wiring inside conduit, makes sense really.
A piece of string with a cotton ball on the end is stuffed into the conduit, and blown through into the next junction box with air. Then you tie the string to the wires, and pull them through.
There are various ways to scan for sub-surface services before you dig. I'm not sure how well fibre is detected by these methods (Cat-and-Genny wouldn't be much use; no idea how effective Ground penetrating Radar is with fibre).
Our gracious hosts had a lecture/video by Ordnance Survey on utility mapping challenges. UK & probably RoW have depth management, so water/sewer deepest, and newbie fibre the shallowest. Which kind of explains fibre cuts where utilities dig through fibre to get to their own stuff.
But there can be locator wires embedded in fibre cables, or in ducts to help with cat & gen tracing. Not every operator seems to do this, ie CityFibre's been laying pipe around me & using a mix of polypipe and microducts.. I didn't see them running locator wires though. But shallow depth helps GPR, which works by sensing density changes, so if there's ducting, it should be able to sense the voids.
Scanning can detect metals and electrical signals. You can lay down a marker tape 6 inches above with metal through it which can be picked up, this usually isn't done. Digging is easy though, especially if you don't dig. We use vacuum excavators all the time in dense areas, just suck dirt up, just work about 1/10th the speed so costs go up that way so a lot of people just take the risk.
There is also the issue of clearing blockages. Given the amount of stuff that clogs sewers up (including some seriously large tunnels) this can only end in disaster. The high-power jets that are used to break up blockage can cut stuff up. There is only so much armour you can put on a cable before it becomes either uneconomic or two heavy to manage.
Whilst I can see why this might appear it is yet another attempt at doing infrastructure on the cheap. We are spending will over £100 billion on HS2 with dubious benefits to put it mildly. Why the hell do we not just put in some larger, universal ducts that people rent space in. One could also (perish the thought) have a national infrastructure that was coordinated between all the interested parties.
Nah, never going to happen, too many vested interests and short term profit requirements.....
Whats taking them so long to decide on this simple and obvious solution?
Oh wait. They have to consider the "square mile's" interests and their shareholders in having their pound of flesh from the action. (Rental revenues, access charges, etc). Evtryone wants a slice of the action pie. And of course, the vested interests of the incumbent operators in losing traditional revenue models (phone line rentals, call charges, other pointless servcies). You see, if every household is wired up permanently with Gigabit fibre, theres no need for the current setup to continue ripping off punters.
So hey ho. Let the status quo continue till the next elections.
It's been done for years.. First I think Urband, then err.. someone else had a deal with Thames Water to run fibre in London sewers. I think it was around 15yrs ago when I did a site visit to see how they installed fibre.. Which was the boring bit, ie tacking ducts to walls, but interesting to do a bit of urbex and get kitted out in all the PPE necessary to end up in the sh*t, safely. I think those deals were exclusive wayleaves, which makes sense given training needed to work in those environments. London also has deep power tunnels that are used for fibre, but also potentially very hazardous environments. Places like NY can also be FUN with additional hazards like high pressure steam pipes.. So wave a stick in front of you, and if the end gets sliced off, it's detected the leak before you lose important body parts.
As for vested interests, one is of course the government and a decision to charge rates on fibre.
Imagine the jokes on tech support calls.
Customer: My connection is incredibly slow.
Agent: Yep, it stinks. It's totally in the gutter.
Customer: I think you're charging too much. I smell a rat.
Agent: Quite possible. We'll have to send a crew down to take care of that.
There is an obvious solution to the problem of fibre being cut by over-enthusiatic digger operators - site it some little way below a high voltage cable.
According to a friend of mine who blacked out Central Edinburgh on one famous occasion, to those who know the city he was digging a trench on the Mound just by the Art Gallery, 'You always know when you have hit a high voltage cable, there's a lovely blue flash and a bang !' !
Problem solved.
Chris Cosgrove