Ultra fat pipes to squeeze through Dundee's sewers

Dundee has been selected as the first Scottish 'Fibrecity' - meaning 100Mbps-plus broadband connectivity will be speeding out of fibre-optic-stuffed sewers and into every home, business and organisation in the city as soon as next year.

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Last month fibre cabling company H2O Networks, which is building the sewer-based network, announced Bournemouth had been selected to be the UK's first Fibrecity, with work due to start there in the next five months.

But now internet lovers in the North have a reason to celebrate too.

Work will begin to wire up Dundee's 55,000-plus homes in 2009, with H2O funding the £30m infrastructure cost. The majority of the cabling will be laid in sewers but where these are not viable, the company will dig 20mm-wide ducts in roads which it said cause minimal disruption to the local area.

Dundee Council has already used H2O's fibre to link two city centre offices in order to share information quickly, and was keen for it to be the first Scottish Fibrecity, said H2O.

In related news, bespoke fibre network company, Geo, has announced it has extended its London sewer-based network to the London Bridge area, offering companies along Southwark Street and its environs 1Gbps to 10Gbps high bandwidth connectivity.