Love threads like this, great little nuggets of information thank you.

Wonder if Energys (or whoever owns it now) have similar infrastructure for the fibre network strung from national grid electricity pylons.

In reply to a post by PhilipSmith72:

Wonder if Energys (or whoever owns it now)

Vodafone (via C&W) -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energis

I’d be interested in understanding the how part of this.

I had no idea fibre was deployed alongside gas pipelines, and burying new fibre in Cumbria would be prohibitively expensive. Hence why Openreach rule up there!

So from what you’re saying fibre has indeed been laid there by a third party, but I assume not dug and ducted in? I always pictured gas pipelines as being a huge pipe buried underground, but is it in fact a pipe within a duct so that the fibre can be pushed alongside it to avoid expensive digging? I’ve seen some gas pipelines above ground but these just seem to pop up for a short run and then go underground again.

Maybe the fibre is in the gas pipe...

That seems somewhat unlikely though

Surely is it just fibre buried alongside the gas pipeline, once you've got everything in place to get a gas pipe installed you've done most of the stuff needed to put a duct in for fibre.

I've always assumed that for big backhaul links like this that they aren't putting in ducts to fill with fibre later, but putting in big bundles of fibre in one go ?

I think it's a combination: they install big ducts, and inside those they pull subducts, and inside those they blow thick fibre cables with hundreds of strands.

So not inside the gas pipe then

Shame, that idea sounded exciting...

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

So not inside the gas pipe then

Shame, that idea sounded exciting...

sounded like an explosive idea to me, "i'm off for a smoking break, finish blowing that fibre for me"

It would have been laid in ducts alongside the pipelines when they were last refreshed - makes sense to only dig once.

A whole heap of fibre was laid around the dot.com boom time - alongside rail, in all the canals, pylons, gas pipelines. Geo also pioneered laying in the sewers. The only downside is some of this older fibre is of a different spec which can limit it's use and the type of optics required to drive it. It can still do 10 of gigs per second.. 1st world problems eh?

The fantastic hidden world of infrastructure which I love.

Yes the great telecoms bubble of the late nineties and early noughties. Which came to a rude and abrupt stop in 2001.

I believe they wanted to deploy in the canals initially for speed and ease, but British Waterways at the time objected so they ran ducts alongside the canals (like the HV network) rather than in the canals.

However we’ve collectively benefited in the decades since, from this massive over expansion in capacity when they were flush with (borrowed) cash. Any parallels to modern times…😎 Nah

That makes sense-when the gas pipes were refreshed they added sun ducts.