Openreach, the operator of the UK’s largest full-fiber network, has announced that it can detect water leaks near its fiber infrastructure by detecting nearby vibrations. According to the company, the BT Group subsidiary is using Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), a technology developed by Lightsonic, a startup firm developing monitoring technologies using existing fiber infrastructure. DAS analyzes changes in the light beam traveling through a fiber optic cable caused by underground vibrations. It then uses machine learning to find the exact location of the disturbance and differentiate it from background noise and day-to-day traffic.
The infrastructure company said that it’s working with Affinity Water, a water utility provider that delivers drinking water to parts of London, eastern England, and southeast England, serving more than 3.8 million customers, to launch a pilot project in five locations. The tech gave Openreach and Affinity Water 24/7 monitoring capabilities on 650 km or more than 400 miles of water pipes in Walton-on-Thames, Hemel Hempstead, Luton, Chesham/Amersham, and Ware, instead of relying on specialized teams that can only work on a specific section of the water infrastructure at a time.
