Bournemouth to gain UK’s first fibre network via sewer systems

May 8, 2008 – Bournemouth has been announced as the UK’s first town to gain a municipality-wide fibre network installed in the sewer system, cutting installation costs drastically.

The new network is part of a nationwide plan from fibre firm H2O and will deliver Internet speeds of up to 100 Mbps, with 88,000 in Bournemouth to benefit.  Work will commence by September of this year and be completed within two and a half years.

“Many households and broadband customers in the UK have insufficient connectivity bandwidths because they are attached to legacy networks deployed in the 20th century,” said Elfed Thomas, CEO of H2O Networks.  “This will be the world’s largest single fibre deployment.  It’s not just a one off.  We are working with our partners here and overseas to create more Fibre Cities.”

H2O will act as the network owner and lease access to the fibre network to ISPs, with the latter to be responsible for billing and customer service operations.  Installations in more UK towns are expected to be announced by H2O in coming months.

Installing a fibre network in the UK via conventional methods of digging up roads currently has an estimated cost of £15bn, and H2O believes that it can cut over 50% from these costs by using existing duct systems.