The UK Government’s (DSIT) c.£6.2 million “Fibre in Water” trial (Project TAWCO), which aimed to test the deployment of fibre optic (FTTP) broadband cables through a live water mains (used for drinking water), has still not progressed to Phase 2 after a decision was taken to “stop the live build trial” due to several key obstacles.
The original trial (details), which started in 2022 and was due to run for 2-3 years, planned to run fibre through 17km of live drinking water mains between Barnsley and Penistone (Yorkshire). In theory, this could then be used to help monitor the network for leakages, provide capacity to nearby 5G mobile masts and spread the coverage of gigabit broadband to an estimated 8,500 rural premises along the route (i.e. without costly street works).
The first phase of Project TAWCO – supported by a consortium of Yorkshire Water, Commsworld, Arcadis and the University of Strathclyde – completed in 2023 and was broadly focused on researching the legal and safety aspects of the plan, as well as some survey work.
Phase One developed a potentially workable commercial model between the two industries, but its survey work also found that a relatively high number of private landowners along the route needed to be negotiated with and compensated for access. Due to this, and other issues, TAWCO ended up proposing a more direct route with only 8km of Fibre in Water. This reduced the risk and cost, but the number of premises expected to benefit was also cut to 7,000.
Summary of Project TAWCO’s Original Phases
● Phase 1 – Research and Investigation
To carry out Research and Investigation into the viability of deploying Fibre in Water Technology. This phase would include reviewing the technology, understanding the operational risk of employing the technology, security risk assessment, agreement of design, ownership and maintenance principles, route design, commercial understanding and benefits of Fibre in Water, cost modelling, technical, operational and commercial viability assessments.
● Phase 2 – Detailed Design and Build
Delivery of a FiW pilot to explore the challenges and demonstrate the benefits to all stakeholders. This would cover the 17km between Barnsley and Penistone and connection via PIA to the Exchange. A private 5G shared spectrum standalone network would be installed at two remote locations demonstrating neutral hosting. FiW would be used for back-haul connectivity to a 5G core and the internet.
● Phase 3 – Operation and Evaluation
Benefits of the FiW solution would be evaluated and winners of the ‘5G in water’ competition would be commissioned.
However, since we posted the last update in May 2023 – a guest editorial from DSIT (here), ISPreview hasn’t been sent any further progress updates. Upon researching this we discovered that a final progress report had been quietly published in March 2024, which confirmed that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) had been unable to progress the project to build (Phase Two).
The decision to stop the trial appears to centre around three key issues – uncertainty around the best commercial model to adopt, the financial risk that only one small start-up has the capability of installing the cables and the somewhat crucial lack of Reg 31 approval.
Summary of the Key Challenges
Combining two industries meant there was a lack of clarity when it came to industry approved standards which meant certification became a challenge. An important aspect of using the clean water network is that anything installed within the network first needs Regulation 31 (Reg 31) approval from the DWI. For this project, approvals were needed for the installation method and the finished installed product. At the time of writing, almost 2 years after the TAWCO project was awarded funding, approval for the finished product remains outstanding and subsequently there is a barrier to adoption until this issue is resolved.
In addition to the enabling technology, alignment of the operational processes of two very disparate industries – from design and construction to ownership and operation, including ‘break-fix’ – presented a significant challenge. TAWCO successfully defined aligned processes and as such has created a useful template that can be adopted once the technology approval process is resolved.
The decision was made to stop the live build trial for project TAWCO. Despite the obvious benefits to interested parties, there remains uncertainty around the best commercial model to adopt to make a viable solution. There is also a financial risk that only one small start-up has the capability of installing the cables using their yet to be approved technology. When combined with the lack of Reg 31 approval, the project was unable to continue under the originally agreed scope, timescales, and financing.
Should the Fibre in Water technology receive Reg 31 approval, the commercial models, business processes and detailed designs produced by project TAWCO could still be used to implement the Fibre in Water solution at either the planned location, or elsewhere with some additional effort to translate the designs. Yorkshire Water remains in contact with other members of the consortium and will consider the opportunity for Fibre in Water implementation in the event that the regulatory barrier is overcome.
In addition, the Barnsley – Penistone route had originally been chosen because Penistone village appeared to be at risk of not having access to gigabit broadband services as the boundaries of “Lot 21” (the Project Gigabit procurement lot for the South Yorkshire area) evolved in response to successive Open Market Reviews (OMR).
The aforementioned uncertainty impacted CommsWorld’s valuation to the point where TAWCO failed to meet the Commsworld investment gate threshold. The “current situation is that Penistone is outside of Lot 21 boundaries and the commercial operator who had said they were going to build in the village has now withdrawn“, leaving Penistone once again without committed Gigabit delivery.
In short, the work done so far found “there is merit” in what they were trying to do and all of the participants had an incentive to find solutions for making it viable, but for now the project appears to be stuck on the shelf until Regulation 31 (Reg 31) approval can be secured.
Part of the problem here is that, at the time of the DSIT Fibre in Water competition, the technology to safely and efficiently install a fibre optic cable inside drinking water mains was considered to be largely a proven one. In 2019, a provider had achieved the all-important ‘Reg 31’ approval for the first iteration of their solution. This in theory meant that a solution was ready to deploy, but that approval was unfortunately later found to be “not applicable to the intended TAWCO FiW design and has since been withdrawn“.
In the meantime, Yorkshire Water said they remain in contact with other members of the consortium and will “consider the opportunity for Fibre in Water implementation” in the event that the regulatory barrier is overcome.