Bournemouth, the UK’s first “Fibrecity”, will have fibre optic cables laid in its sewers to enable high-speed broadband.

Bournemouth is the first UK town to have super-fast fibre optic broadband laid in its sewers – the first stage of which will happen this week as residents are invited to get connected for free.

As one of the largest “Fibrecity” projects in Europe and the first in the UK, H2O Networks Ltd will fund and provide the network of fibre optical cable across the town at a cost of around £30 million.

The work is scheduled to start in September, but this week, all home and business premises within the Bournemouth Borough Boundary will receive letters asking them to grant permission for their free connection. 

By using the waste water network, the company will install its patented FS (Fibre Optical Cable Underground Sewer) System, and deliver ultra high bandwidth to all Bournemouth’s businesses and more than 88,000 homes at speeds far exceeding current DSL or cable modem speeds, typically by tens or even hundreds of Mbps.

Users will be able to access FTTH (Fibre to the home), the fastest way of sending and receiving data – meaning faster downloads and a wealth of communication opportunities to improve people’s lives and the environment.

The benefits to homes and businesses are considerable. Home users will be able to take advantage of services such as IPTV and home medical monitoring and businesses will have 22nd Century connectivity at their fingertips.

Estimated to take about two years in total, the work needed to connect each home and business premise will be completed very quickly. Furthermore, due to the use of the sewer systems, the normally associated installation costs are reduced and this should be reflected in any competitive service package.

Councillor Nick King, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Communications, said: “Bournemouth is incredibly privileged to have been chosen as the UK’s first Fibrecity. This decision is a giant leap forward and gives us a real competitive advantage. Bournemouth really needs to embrace the many advantages that being a Fibrecity will bring and I am sure it will bring massive rewards to all homes and businesses that sign up to the services that this network will enable.

“The Council has already installed H2O Networks’ high speed fibre to its offices and the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) and Pavilion Theatre, so we are aware of the difference this type of connectivity can make.”

Fibrecity deployments are far kinder to the environment than traditional methods of fibre deployment, 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. In addition, the system is at least 80% faster than traditional methods.

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 (mm) 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.

For more information visit: www.fibrecity.eu ^[1]