- Aqualinq, fresh out of stealth mode, came up with tech that can deploy fiber via existing waterpipes
- The company touts a cheaper, faster alternative to aerial and underground fiber, but there are always risks when dealing with a public water supply
- Running fiber through waterpipes is also less of a permitting headache for ISPs, Aqualinq said
It goes without saying fiber broadband is expensive to deploy – especially if you’re digging underground to get the biggest bang for your buck. But what if there’s another, less resource-intensive way to get fiber flowing (literally) to folks who need it?
Aqualinq, fresh out of stealth mode, has come up with a technology that lets internet service providers deploy fiber optic cables via existing waterpipes. The company’s goal is to offer an alternative to aerial and buried fiber. And really, water is where the people are, said Ian Deacon, Aqualinq’s head of business development.
“People have water, so water pipes go there. The more people there [are], the bigger the pipes,” he said. “And the bigger the pipe, the more fibers you can get in.”
Here’s how it works. Wherever there’s a water valve, Aqualinq would insert a draw cable into the pipe and then use a “parachute” (a piece of hardware that moves the cable) to pull it down the pipe length until the cable reaches the next valve. Aqualinq then pulls up the draw cable, attaches a conduit with fiber, puts it into the pipe and moves onto the next valve. Rinse and repeat.
The fiber can be pre-installed into the conduit, or an ISP can “blow their own fiber through it” if that’s what it prefers, Deacon explained. Notably, the work can be done while the pipes are pressurized, so the utility doesn’t have to shut down the water system.
Essentially, Aqualinq aims to “[disrupt] a market, which we thought needed to be disrupted,” Aqualinq CFO Yovav Gavish told Fierce.
The average cost to deploy underground fiber is around $16 per foot, according to a study last year from Cartesian and the Fiber Broadband Association. Boring underground fiber can also take several months and be pretty disruptive in densely populated areas.
Aerial fiber is usually cheaper to build, but it’s more susceptible to damage from inclement weather conditions. Plus, securing pole attachment approval is a common pain point among operators.
Dell’Oro Group VP Jeff Heynen said Aqualinq’s tech sounds similar to something trialed in the U.K. several years ago, the Atlantis Hydrotec “pipe in a pipe” solution.
Water safety concerns
“I think the challenges for this type of technology haven’t changed,” he said. Sure, the time-to-market for ISPs will be faster and not as expensive as greenfield trenching. But what’s in it for the water company?
In Heynen’s opinion, the biggest concern is “whether water utilities are going to run the risk of damaging their critical infrastructure simply to reduce the costs of ISPs or other fiber providers deploying their links.”
For Aqualinq’s part, it offers a couple of incentives for utilities, Gavish told Fierce. First, it can provide an internal communication system through the fiber that’s being run to help the utility improve its operations. Also, many water utilities, “even the more advanced ones,” often don’t know exactly where their pipes are since they tend to shift over the years. Aqualinq lends the utilities a hand with that, too.
“We provide them accurate asset location [for free] and then they have their own pipe network mapped throughout the system,” said Gavish. Additionally, Aqualinq can reach an agreement with utilities about “some payments, if it’s needed.”
While a utility could use Aqualinq’s infrastructure to improve their smart monitoring and leak detection capabilities, “any additional revenue accrued by providing access to the existing water pipes will be marginal, at best,” Heynen said. He’s not sure if these benefits outweigh the risk of something going wrong with the water.
“We can certainly survive without Internet service for a time. But potable water is an entirely different story,” Heynen said.
Ensuring water is still safe to consume is at the forefront of Aqualinq’s mind. The company samples the water before and after it runs the fiber through the pipes, Deacon said. The utility either checks the potability itself or has a local agency test the sample.
“Anything that goes anywhere near the water is thoroughly decontaminated,” he said.
Tackling the broadband permitting conundrum
A couple of municipalities in the U.S. have already used Aqualinq to deploy fiber via water lines: Kentucky’s Madison County and the City of Anacortes in Washington State. In the case of Anacortes, the city was able to install fiber that crossed things like riverbeds, railways and interstates – places that can be challenging for the average ISP to build around.
“[ISPs are] all having problems with permitting in those sorts of areas,” Deacon said. “We just go straight under them.”
Fiber operators like Brightspeed, Ziply and others have been fairly vocal about how much permitting and regulatory hurdles stall deployments. They’re hoping the new presidential administration will cut a lot of that red tape.
Of course, it’s easier for a municipality that has control over utilities to get approval to build fiber there, Gavish said. But using Aqualinq is still less of a headache for private ISPs, because all they need is permission from the water utility – not from the electric company or any other public entity.
“There’s no concern of us digging through any gas, electricity or any other infrastructure, because we don’t cross this infrastructure,” he said. “We only go through the water pipe.”
