Following our story yesterday about the scrapping of Bournemouth's sewer-fibre broadband scheme, the i3 Group has finally come up with a statement on the matter.
i3 Group said Wessex Water had been short sighted in putting commercial demands above "the opportunity to provide a low cost fibre optic network that will deliver superfast broadband to their own customers".
"Citing technical issues as a reason is misleading in respect to the viability of the i3 Group's FS System, a patented method of laying fibre in ready made ducts including sewer pipes," i3 said, adding that the announcement of Fibrecity Bournemouth as a commercial venture had followed Wessex Water's permission for the sewer pipes to be used.
The company described the use of micro-trenching and digging up roads as a way to avoid the rollout "coming to a halt", and noted that Bournemouth Borough Council had given planning permission for these techniques to be used.
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Micro-trenching - what a good method for rolling out next gen networks as it's certianly cheap, but there are a couple of problems with it:
Road movement: The surface of the road can move with the weight of the traffic. Even quite small movements can be sufficient to crush or otherwise damage cables and ducts. To reduce movement, cables are installed along the edge of the gutter of the road, where the curbing will add strength.
Road thickness: Micro-trenches must be at least 100mm deep, and thus the road surface needs to be at least that thick. Cutting through the asphalt and into the base of the road will seriously reduce the cost-effectiveness of micro-trenching, as extra measures are required to ensure water does not penetrate the road base (potentially causing subsidence and long term road damage).
Road resurfacing: When roads are resurfaced, the fibre must be physically removed from its micro-trench beforehand, and reinstalled afterwards, to avoid any damage being done to it when the old road surface is milled down. This reduces the long term cost-effectiveness of this system.
Sewers are a great idea - as they aren't affected by road works above. I'd never build a new network based on micro-trenching, it's fine for campus based networks which are never dug up, but along public highways? Are they mad?
Interesting stuff - thanks for the comment!