Nothing has been heard for years of the plan to lay fibre optic cables alongside Britain’s waterways, but GEC Plessey Telecommunications Ltd yesterday announced that it holds 74.5% of Telephone Cables Ltd, and that Telephone Cables has in turn formed a new company, Fibreway Ltd, which will build, own and maintain a network of fibre optic cables to run mainly along canal towpaths and waterways. Fibreway does not plan to operate its own service, but will instead lease capacity to any of the any of the existing or future licensed operators that wanted it, working with the state British Waterways authority, which controls 2,000 miles of canals and river navigations. A first link in Scotland on the Forth & Clyde and Union Canals between Edinburgh and Glasgow will be ready for use in April.
