You may have heard of somebody “flying a cable” before, but the UK government may just introduce “floating a cable” with a new project it’s testing out.

Originally announced in August 2021, the UK government said it would test the viability of running fibre broadband cables through the water system. Now, a report from The Register points to a test taking place in South Yorkshire that appears to be linked to fibre through water pipes.

The report reveals that fibre-optic cable will be strung through 17km of water piping between Barnsley and Penistone. For now the project is simply in the test phase as no homes will reportedly be connected.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in the UK told The Register that the focus for now is on safety and legal aspects of the solution, as well as whether it is commercially viable.

Separately, but somewhat related, another test will see whether running fibre through pipes could help to detect leaks.

While the report suggests as many as 8 500 homes could be reached using this solution, internet service providers or fibre network operators would have to connect homes to the network themselves.

This is an interesting idea, but whether it’s actually viable or not is a different matter altogether. With that having been said, we’re going to be following this test phase closely as, if it proves to be a viable way of getting connectivity to places, perhaps it could work in other parts of the world.

According to the World Health Organisation, 74 percent of the global population has access to a safely managed drinking water service at their home (such as from a municipality or local council). While this number is lower than we believe it ought to be, the potential using water pipes to provide connectivity is huge.

We are curious about how fibre network operators would get into these pipes, as well as how repairs would be executed but we suppose this is why testing is so important.

[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]