[LINK] Internet descending below gutter level...

[richard@auscoms.com.au]

The sewer is, I suspect, a very inappropriate environment for fibre ... not
because of what the poo might do to the fibres, but because of what the light
might do to methane should a fibre break.

eg, fibre is still used only with caution in some mining applications because of
the risk of explosion...

Richard C

____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject:    [LINK] Internet descending below gutter level...
Author: "Michael Lean" <m.lean@qut.edu.au>
Date:       9/11/00 9:44

WIRING CITY STREETS, VIA THE SEWERS
Issue: Infrastructure
Digging up city streets has been a very real cost of building the nation's
virtual superhighway. But now one telecommunications company, CityNet
Telecommunications of Silver Spring, MD., is trying a different strategy in
laying the nation's data pipes: the sewers. Robert G. Berger, owner of
CityNet, is investing $75 million in 100 cat-size robots that troll around
sewer pipes, laying fiber-optic cable. The sewer strategy could save many
cities the cost and hassle of the Internet's development: buckled streets
and crippled traffic. " While fiber-optic cable currently carries most
Internet traffic through the nation's network, copper wires carry data
between telephone-company central offices and the homes and businesses they
serve, a span known in the telecom industry as "the last mile. "The holy
grail of telecom is the last mile, and all carriers great and
small--everyone needs that physical last mile of fiber," Berger said. In
DC, where Mayor Anthony A. Williams imposed a moratorium on network
companies digging up the streets to lay fiber-optic cable, CityNet is in
"active discussions" to deploy its sewer-access modules, Berger said.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E05), AUTHOR: Yuki Noguchi]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37705-2000Nov7.html)