Fibre laying firm ready to begin operations in Canada with new gas line technology

A California-based company is preparing to deliver a last mile fibre solution by using gas lines to lay fibre optic cable without digging up city streets. It is hoping to roll out service to major Canadian utilities within weeks. "We’ve met with the major gas companies in Canada and we hope to meet with them some more and go to contract hopefully, if I had my way, within the next month or two," Michael Clover, president of Sempra Fiber Links, tells Network Letter. "Of course it’s their decision and many of the telcos are ready to build, so we hope to have some activity in Canada this year." So far the firm has met with major gas companies across the country, and it is hoping to deal with both ILECs and CLECs to provide service. "Obviously, the incumbents would be the greatest customer," Clover says. "Yet there’s a little hesitancy for them to give up copper that they’ve had in the ground for 100 years and make great money off of it." While the company expects to be selling to Canadians soon, it has no plans to establish offices north of the border. Clover says Sempra tends to hire local contractors who are experienced in gas and telecom operations. The number of employees at its head office is quite small, he notes. The San Diego firm is offering its technology to telecommunications providers, municipal planners, gas utilities, and construction companies. The Fiber-in-Gas process is suited to dense metropolitan areas where the costs of traditional installation methods are high. Sempra is one of several corporations that are looking for alternatives to the old way of laying fibre. Toronto-based Stream Intelligent Networks Corp. has long deployed a robotic system that allows access through sewer pipes (NL, March 12/01). Clover suspects using gas lines is cheaper than going through sewers. He also warns about the dangers of contamination from the drains. "They have to clean the sewers, and then they have to use stainless steel," he states. "The telcos are a little nervous because fibre optics can be influenced clearly by other elements. Where a gas system, inertial gas is almost a perfect environment. If there’s ever a problem the gas wouldn’t burn long before the fibre optics could be affected." He adds that contractors are more likely to practice precaution around gas lines than they are with other conduits. Last mile too expensive Among the failings Clover finds with open-street trenching are cost and the lack of last mile delivery. "In many cases, even though they’re tearing up the streets, they’re not actually running the fibre to the major businesses, because that’s fairly expensive to trench over to the building. So the fibres tend to be running as back hauls for the telephone offices, either long distance or the local telephone company, and they’re not dropping off the fibre to the major buildings." Clover believes that within the next decade fibre will become a more important factor in telecommunications. "When you look to the future for true high-speed broadband data, you must have fibre."He is heartened by the global interest in broadband. Sempra has just signed a contract in the Netherlands, where the government is in the process of delivering fibre to the home. In doing so, Holland is following the lead of other European countries such as Sweden and Iceland. "In the U.S., all the debate right now is just between cable modems and DSL, which is higher emails at home or your kids downloading something. But for real broadband you need fibre," Clover asserts. For more details on Sempra’s last mile solution, see Michael Clover’s Newsmaker column in this issue.

Fibre laying firm ready to begin operations in Canada with new gas line technology

News | 01/14/2002 5:00 am EST

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