United Kingdom

1. The Electricity Supply Industry

The electricity network consists of the high voltage (275kV and 400kV) transmission lines owned by the National Grid Company and its Scottish counterparts, and the distribution system (below 275kV in England and Wales, and below 132kV in Scotland) almost entirely run by the 14 Public Electricity Suppliers (PESs).

Some Regional Electricity Companies (RECs) and transmission companies have diversified into telecommunications. For example, NORWEB (North Western Electricity Board), SWEB (South Western Electricity Board), Scottish Power and Scottish HydroElectric all hold various telecoms licences. While these companies primarily use fibre optic networks, a few, notably NORWEB, are developing the use of Power Lines Technology (PLT) - which enables the transmission of data along electricity cables.

From September 1998, domestic and small business customers have been able to choose who supplies their electricity. Previously, they had to buy their electricity from their local electricity supplier. Now the market is being opened up in phases depending on postcodes:

• Phase 1: (Commenced 14th September 1998) Will consist of 10% of domestic customers and quarterly business customers including all half hourly metered and maximum demand customers.
• Phase 2: 13 weeks after Phase 1, will consist of all remaining business customers and a further 33% of domestic customers.
• Phase 3: Within 6 months of starting, will consist of all remaining domestic customers.

The deregulation of the electricity market has now entered its second phase with ten electricity supply companies now open to competition. This accounts for some 6 million customers. All those suppliers who hold telecom licences are now open to competition in the supply of electricity.

The following current uses of the electricity network for IS purposes can be identified:

1.1 Power-line communications

In October 1997, United Utilities (owners of the electricity suppliers Norweb) and Northern Telecom of Canada announced that they had developed a system for sending data along power lines without excessive distortion by interference. The initial application is the provision of Internet services, with a flat tariff for unlimited use.

On March 25 1998, it was announced that 10 international utilities, in 7 European and South-East Asian countries, had licensed the technology, and that talks were continuing with a number of other companies. At the same time, Nortel and United Utilities announced the formation of a joint company NOR.WEB DPL to market their Digital Power Lines technology with 200 homes being connected by the end of 1998. Access will initially be confined in the geographical areas currently supplied by the newly formed company, although investment is being targeted at extending the network.

The technology involves the use of fibre-optic or radio links to deliver the data to local electricity sub-stations, whence it is transmitted through the low-voltage electricity network to a box adjacent to the domestic electricity meter, which in turn is connected to a personal computer. The local lines delivering power to the home or office thus "double-up" as data carriers, and as such provide direct competition to the current sole owner of the local loop, BT. Up to 1Mb/s of data can be carried, which is up to 10 times faster than information carried over ISDN lines. A trial in Manchester was completed in March 1998, and in November 1998 Norweb announced that six electricity substations were ‘network ready’ – meaning that over 1500 customers are within reach. The full service is planned for roll-out in early 1999.

The system could, it is thought, also provide a voice telephony service, although as a commercial application this is likely to be some way off. If successful, however, the impact on BT and the cable companies could be very considerable.

1.2 Fibre-optic cables from transmission lines

In March 1993, the National Grid Company launched a telecommunications subsidiary, Energis. The latter then rolled out a national network of fibre-optic cable which now extends to more than 5000km, principally on National Grid’s electricity transmission infrastructure. Use of this infrastructure enabled the cable to be established more quickly and at lower cost than would have been possible using conventional underground cable-laying procedures. The system is extended into the distribution systems of some Regional Electricity Companies.

Energis is targeting business as its customer base, offering sophisticated data services such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and virtual private networks, in addition to telephony. It claims to handle over 60% of Internet traffic in the UK, and serves over 30 national ISPs. It has some large retail and utility-industry customers. The relative attractiveness of business traffic stems from the national coverage of the network, without ownership of a local loop.

In December 1997 Energis was floated on the Stock Market and, in April 1998, announced its intention to develop local telecommunications networks in the UK via a joint venture with Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom. This joint venture - named MetroHoldings Limited - has now completed three SDH broadband fibre rings in and around the City of London, with 3 more to follow in London, one in Birmingham and one in Manchester.

Some RECs have also shown interest in using their infrastructure to support cable. For example, Eastern Electricity, a member of the Eastern Group, has an 800 km network of fibre-optic cable, some wrapped around existing high-voltage power lines and some underground. Another Eastern Group company, Eastern Group Telecommunications, which holds a PTO licence, also offers radio mast services primarily to mobile operators.

1.3 Remote metering

In July 1998, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) announced that a dedicated radiowave frequency would be allocated to allow electricity, gas and water meters to be read remotely. In November 1998, the Radiocommunications Agency allocated these frequencies and has invited bids for licences. Eight 25MHz blocks will be available for both regional and national licences and a 200MHz block has been licenced by BCN Data Systems who applied for a licence to provide third party meter reading services. AMR (Automated Meter Reading) allows utilities companies to collect data not only for billing purposes, but also for measuring demand for services etc. A number of different technologies are currently being developed.

2. Rail

Since the early 1980s, CWC has laid cable along trackside ducts, later leasing space on cable owned by British Rail (and later operated by Racal-BRT, which took over British Rail’s telecoms interests. The company is now known as Racal Telecom.

Racal Telecom now runs a core telecommunications network running alongside the 16,000km of railway track, including about 5700km equipped with fibre-optic cable. While the primary application is to deliver a telecommunications service to the railway itself, including an internal rail telephone system and a mobile train radio network, the company also market spare capacity on the fibre network. They offer a dark fibre service, supplying an unlit strand of fibre to which the consumer attaches their own equipment, and the use of capacity in existing connected broadband cable. For commercial reasons, the company is unwilling to divulge details of the lengths of cable involved, geographical spread or numbers of customers, but the service appears to be well established.

Racal is also one of the companies involved in Hermes, the single integrated pan-European broadband digital fibre-optic network along railway tracks. A consortium of eleven European railway operators is involved. The intention is that the system will provide a carriers carrier, the customers being licensed operators rather than end-users.

In addition to the Racal services, Railtrack, the company which looks after the national rail infrastructure, can grant rights to any company to lay cable alongside the track.

London Underground have two forms of infrastructure available to third parties to lay cable - the tunnels of the underground network itself (700km), and tramducts under public roads (400km), originally used for tramway power supplies.

Separate arrangements are necessary for connection to the premises of the user, although most buildings in central London are within 500m of a potential access point. CWC is among the companies currently renting wayleaves, the cost of which is estimated at about one-sixth the cost of conventional streetworks.

Additionally, dark fibre was installed on the Circle Line in March 1995.

Energis, the National Grid telecoms company, also exploited its network of cables in London Underground tunnels to build its broadband fibre rings as part of the MetroHoldings venture (see Section 1.1).

Eastern Group Telecoms - a subsidiary of gas and electricity suppliers Eastern Group - has joined forces with a commercial telecoms company to run the UK end of a Channel Tunnel project to run a fibre optic commercial telecoms cable through both tunnels to link London to Paris. It provided 170 kms of underground fibre optics between the Folkestone end of the tunnel and the centre of the City of London. The entire link between Paris and London is around 1300 km long. Esprit Telecom was responsible for the telecoms services, and launched the new commercial link between London and Paris in May 1998; it is the first stage in Esprit's planned network across eight European countries, including Germany and Southern Europe.

South Eastern Electricity Board (SEEBoard), owned by the American Central and South West Corporation (CSW), has announced a 30 year contract with London Underground to maintain and operate their underground power network. The contract allows the parties to share any profits gained from the exploitation of the network. As well as the ability to compete directly with London Electricity, there is obviously potential for other applications of the existing infrastructure, for example, powerlines or bundling telecom cables (CSW already own telecommunications services in the US

3. Canals

There has been considerable activity in relation to canals. On 6 March 1997, Fibreway Ltd. announced the commencement of an optical fibre link along canal towpaths. Fibreway argue that these offer one of the UK's largest continuous and secure wayleaves, without risk from maintenance work.

In August 1998 Fibreway announced that its network of canalside cables was complete. The network covers 10,000km and carries services between eight major cities, the so-called "Figure of 8" (London, Bristol, Gloucester, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Birmingham). Spurs to the network will connect Edinburgh and Glasgow and also the Basingstoke corridor.

The fibre is being leased to the operators Telewest and TANet Ltd. In September 1998 Fibreway also announced a contract with InterDigital Networks IDN, who are using the Fibreway network between London Paddington and Hemel Hempstead to provide services to business customers. Also, a new national telecoms network has been launched by Redstone Telecom which will run over Fibrenet’s network on a region-by region basis as customers are signed up.

60% of the population of the UK lives within 8km of a canal, offering great potential for rapidly increased access over the network.

4. Concluding Remarks

Regarding potential IS applications, the electricity transmission and supply companies have been identified as major users of alternative networks in their applications of power lines, either as carriers of signals or as supports for cable. The development of Power Lines technology by a number of RECs and telecommunications companies, has prompted the formation of a Working Group and a number of conferences have been held in the last few months, with delegates from across Europe attending.

Other applications have been found in rail and underground systems, with use also made of the canal network. Technical change has also presented the possibility for using the telephone network for purposes not originally envisaged.

Despite the continued expansion of multi-utilities in the UK the gas, oil and water supply networks appear not yet to have been exploited.