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Why wasn't cable more widely used? (April 2018)

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BL
bluecortina
Does anyone remember the story of a company that bought the complete system of underground pipes around central London that carried a fluid (water?) under pressure to various parts around London to service some heavy machinery that needed significant hydraulic power to drive it? I think it was a Victorian network and I think it was about 25 years ago.

The intention was to feed new cables through the inners of the pipes causing no disruption in central London. Sounded a great idea at the time, but I don't think it actually got off the ground (or perhaps more appropriately 'got under the ground'). Anyone remember?
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Nice bit of NIMBYism there. What about residents who may have wanted the service? Why are you ‘thankful’ you haven’t got cable in your street? Surely having the widest choice of providers (whether for pay TV or internet) is a good thing?


In fairness, when my parents' streets were dug up for cable some time ago the smooth pavement surfaces were replaced by a bumpy, lumpy mess. Now that's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things for most people, but I can see why it could be for some.


When the cable was installed in my parents street in the 1990s the end result looked like this and you can still see today where the cables were laid:
*

Cosmetically wise it was probably no worse than anything you see when people have finished digging a road up, though being new asphalt or tarmac or whatever it was, it stood out like a sore thumb. As time passes it will probably blend more into the colour of the rest of the pavement as it gets rained on and what not.
IS
Ipswich Simon
Nice bit of NIMBYism there. What about residents who may have wanted the service? Why are you ‘thankful’ you haven’t got cable in your street? Surely having the widest choice of providers (whether for pay TV or internet) is a good thing?


The residents were willing to have it and had East Coast Cable done the job properly they would have provided the service. The residents did not want the mess left with filled in trenches along the footpaths and their driveways looking crap which you can still see some nearly 30 years later. They had seen neighbouring roads and ALL the residents felt the same at the time, its only a small road. Many were not interested in cable television, those that wanted extra channels had invested in satellite dishes and were loyal to British Telecom at the time for their phone services.
MA
Markymark
Does anyone remember the story of a company that bought the complete system of underground pipes around central London that carried a fluid (water?) under pressure to various parts around London to service some heavy machinery that needed significant hydraulic power to drive it? I think it was a Victorian network and I think it was about 25 years ago.

The intention was to feed new cables through the inners of the pipes causing no disruption in central London. Sounded a great idea at the time, but I don't think it actually got off the ground (or perhaps more appropriately 'got under the ground'). Anyone remember?


It was using sewer pipes (I'm resisting the temptation to make any further comment !)

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/24/h20_sewer_rollout/
BL
bluecortina
Does anyone remember the story of a company that bought the complete system of underground pipes around central London that carried a fluid (water?) under pressure to various parts around London to service some heavy machinery that needed significant hydraulic power to drive it? I think it was a Victorian network and I think it was about 25 years ago.

The intention was to feed new cables through the inners of the pipes causing no disruption in central London. Sounded a great idea at the time, but I don't think it actually got off the ground (or perhaps more appropriately 'got under the ground'). Anyone remember?


It was using sewer pipes (I'm resisting the temptation to make any further comment !)

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/24/h20_sewer_rollout/


Whilst the article makes sense it's not relating to the story I very clearly remember.

Apparently in central London in Victorian times there were lots of companies requiring pressurised fluids of some sort to operate their machinery. I don't know if we would be talking about water or some other kind of liquid. I'm talking about machinery such as Tower Bridge for example or the perhaps some printing presses in Fleet Street (Just using them as examples, I'm not saying they actually needed or wanted pressurised fluids). Rather than build a facility at each premises, someone set up a central company (by whom I know not) and it's business was to supply these needs from a central site via a network of underground pipes - presumably given the era it would not have been as disruptive as it would be today.

I clearly remember someone latching onto this in the mid-80's (I think), they bought the entire old system with a view to pushing FO cables down the pipes. I don't think anything came of it though - perhaps they later discovered it would be very difficult to push the cables round right angle corners! I'm not imagining it.

Edited to add. Just found a background link.:

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/h/hydraulic_power_in_london/

.. and it looks as though it did happen after all. I'll be blowed!
Last edited by bluecortina on 4 May 2018 1:10pm - 4 times in total
bilky asko, Markymark and Spencer gave kudos
SP
Spencer
Edited to add. Just found a background link.:

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/h/hydraulic_power_in_london/

.. and it looks as though it did happen after all. I'll be blowed!


Fascinating article. Thanks for posting.
RK
Rkolsen
How often are your guys underground cables replaced? Here I’d say Comcast replaces them on a 10-15 year schedule to the distribution box, then if needed to the home. Unfortunately right behind my house is the underground Verizon FiOS distribution box and our cable line has been cut numerous times by people installing Fios (and ultimately have switched back to Comcast). Misutility marks the existing lines but FiOS installers don’t seem to care. Maybe it’s because there’s a small four foot gap between the back of my fence and the bottom of the hill.

In the undergrounded area of their system they don’t dig trenches. On the main roads they have this large hydraulic machine for horizontal drilling.

During the last underground cable instal they ran cable that’s supposedly self healing (some sort of gel) and tough to cut through.
GE
thegeek Founding member
Edited to add. Just found a background link.:

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/h/hydraulic_power_in_london/

.. and it looks as though it did happen after all. I'll be blowed!


Fascinating article. Thanks for posting.

If you're interested, there's still an accumulator tower that you can visit at Tower Bridge, although the bridge itself has long been driven by electric motors.

And for another media connection, there's another former hydraulic power station in Glasgow, Four Winds Pavilion - it's just between BBC Scotland and STV, and was home to Beat 106 and the variety of stations that followed until it became Capital FM (who appear to have moved to a nondescript office building in the city centre).

14 days later

RI
Riaz
Does anyone remember the story of a company that bought the complete system of underground pipes around central London that carried a fluid (water?) under pressure to various parts around London to service some heavy machinery that needed significant hydraulic power to drive it? I think it was a Victorian network and I think it was about 25 years ago.

The intention was to feed new cables through the inners of the pipes causing no disruption in central London. Sounded a great idea at the time, but I don't think it actually got off the ground (or perhaps more appropriately 'got under the ground'). Anyone remember?


That was Mercury Communications.
MW
Mike W
Riaz posted:
Does anyone remember the story of a company that bought the complete system of underground pipes around central London that carried a fluid (water?) under pressure to various parts around London to service some heavy machinery that needed significant hydraulic power to drive it? I think it was a Victorian network and I think it was about 25 years ago.

The intention was to feed new cables through the inners of the pipes causing no disruption in central London. Sounded a great idea at the time, but I don't think it actually got off the ground (or perhaps more appropriately 'got under the ground'). Anyone remember?


That was Mercury Communications.

Did they manage it? Their manholes are found all over London still, they even had the Met Police MetPhone contract in the early 1990s carrying radio (MetRadio) and telephony (internal and external) traffic between sites, interfacing with BT's switchboards.
JA
james-2001
I can remember when Mercury even had their own phone boxes during the 90s in some cities.
IS
Inspector Sands
Yes and phones with Mercury buttons, and their great adverts with Harry Enfield.

Most of Mercury was sold to Cable and Wireless IIRC and its mobile network One2One became T-Mobile and is now part of EE

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