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Southern Water trials fibre based leak detection. Southern Water is deploying Lightsonic technology to identify leaks across its fresh water network, using existing fibre-optic infrastructure operated by Openreach. The move comes as almost three-quarters of England is in drought, while Southern England faces particular water stress. Lightsonic's approach has already helped save more than four million litres of water a day across 650km of the UK water network. By turning telecommunications fibre running alongside pipes into acoustic sensors, the deployment is intended to help protect supplies, cut field time and strengthen network resilience. A response to water stress. The programme arrives against a challenging backdrop for water utilities. The press release cites the Environment Agency and Defra, which reported that almost three-quarters of England is in drought following the driest July on record. Reservoir levels have fallen to exceptionally low levels, putting pressure on resources across all regions. Leakage remains a substantial issue across the national network. Around 2.6 billion litres of water is lost through leaks in England each day, according to the release, equivalent to more than 1,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The challenge is compounded by the age of the asset base: 60% of water mains are 45 years old, while 13% are more than a century old. Southern Water supplies drinking water to 2.7 million customers across Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Its deployment is designed to support ongoing efforts to reduce avoidable losses before they place further pressure on reservoirs and abstraction. Wayne Novelli, Leakage and Network Strategy Manager at Southern Water, said: "We've reduced leakage across our network for three consecutive years and continue to invest in innovative techniques and technologies to find and fix leaks even more effectively," Wayne Novelli, Leakage and Network Strategy Manager at Southern Water, said: "We've been impressed by the leakage reduction metrics and proven success of Lightsonic's technology and are looking forward to working with the team as we head into winter - when colder conditions can result in more leaks - to trial a new way of detecting and tackling them." Using fibre as sensors. Lightsonic converts telecommunications fibre networks installed alongside water pipes into acoustic sensing infrastructure. The system uses acoustic data from the fibre to detect leaks in nearby pipelines and provide location information for operational teams, enabling technicians to investigate and stop leaks more quickly. Rather than requiring a separate sensor network to be installed, the model uses Openreach's existing fibre infrastructure. This offers a practical route to wider coverage while reducing the disruption and expense associated with deploying dedicated monitoring equipment across extensive water networks. The company states that its technology can detect 1.2 million litres of water leaks a day per 100km of network covered annually. Lightsonic also reports that technicians can find four times as many leaks in fewer field hours, helping maintenance teams focus resources where they are most needed. The system categorises leaks by severity, supporting repair prioritisation and a faster response to failures. Building on earlier deployments. Southern Water selected Lightsonic following the technology's initial work with Affinity Water and Openreach. Across 650km of the UK water network, the companies have helped save more than four million litres of water a day, providing a basis for the latest deployment. The initiative is also positioned to support Southern Water's response to the Ofwat requirement for a 17% reduction in leakage by 2030. Continuous monitoring could help the utility suppress losses over time, protecting available supply and easing demand on reservoirs and abstraction during worsening climate conditions. Tommy Langnes, CEO at Lightsonic, said: "Ageing infrastructure, leaking networks and mounting climate pressure are converging, causing major water stress," Tommy Langnes, CEO at Lightsonic, said: "By utilising existing fibre optic infrastructure, we have a solution that can be quickly and effectively scaled across the UK to help utility companies get a handle on leaks, secure supply and generate savings that can be reinvested to upgrade our aging network. The industry needs a quick and comprehensive response and that is what we offer." Infrastructure with wider value. For Openreach, the work demonstrates how full-fibre assets can support services beyond connectivity. The combination of fibre reach and distributed acoustic sensing offers the potential for continuous monitoring without the cost and physical disruption of building a separate network of sensors. Trevor Linney, Director of Network Technology at Openreach, said: "The results of our existing pilots with Lightsonic show that our new full fibre infrastructure can deliver value far beyond broadband - and could prove to be a real game changer in solving real-world challenges like water conservation. "Combining Lightsonic's technology with the reach of Openreach's Full Fibre network makes continuous utility monitoring genuinely scalable, without the cost and disruption of building a separate sensor network." A more resilient supply network. Southern Water's latest trial places leakage reduction alongside longer-term infrastructure resilience. The utility operates in an environmentally sensitive region that includes 700 miles of coastline, 87 designated bathing waters and chalk streams such as Hampshire's River Test and Itchen. As drought conditions, ageing assets and supply pressures converge, earlier leak identification can give water companies a more efficient means of protecting treated water before it is lost. The Southern Water deployment provides a timely example of how established communications infrastructure can be put to work in conserving a resource under increasing strain.

Southern Water harness Openreach's UK fibre broadband network to detect leaks. Wednesday, Sep 23rd, 2026 (11:40 am) - Score 80 Utility company Southern Water, which supplies drinking water to millions of customers across the South of England, has announced that they've deployed Lightsonic's technology that works by harnessing Openreach's (BT) existing fibre optic broadband network to help detect underground water leaks in pipes. As Ispreview has reported before (here, here, and here), fibre optic cables aren't only useful for transmitting data using pulses of laser light. Such cables can also be used to detect subtle changes in those light signals (e.g. polarisation) as they move along the fibre, which can help to monitor Earthquakes, Tsunamis and even with locating underground water leaks via Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) or Distributed Fibre Optic Sensing (DFOS). NOTE: England and Wales currently lose c.3 billion litres of treated water daily through leaks. Openreach 's full fibre (FTTP) broadband network covers c.23.5 million UK premises and they're aiming to reach 25m by December 2026, before targeting" up to "30m by 2030. Earlier this year Ispreview reported on how Lightsonic and Openreach had been trialling such a technology in the UK with Affinity Water, which in its first three months had already been used to pinpoint 100+ leaks and was estimated to have saved 2 million litres of water a day. Since then Ispreview understand that the solution is now saving "over" 4 million litres of water per day and that's across just 650km of the UK's water network. The trial used "spare" fibres in Openreach's network to create a system capable of providing real-time data for multiple utilities, allowing costs to be shared. But the future plan always envisaged this solution being expanded to work across Openreach's active fibre network too (this hasn't happened yet), rather than having to install a dedicated sensing fibre network. The latest development is that Southern Water have now deployed a more mature version of this technology. This announcement comes as almost three-quarters of England is in drought, which has made it even more important than usual to find and plug water leaks in the network. Currently around 2.6 billion litres of water is lost through leakage across the country's network every day. England also has an ageing water network with 60% of water mains 45 years old and 13% more than 100, which are prone to leaks. Discover more Download Interactive Maps Telecom news updates Trevor Linney, Director of Network Technology at Openreach, said: "The results of its existing pilots with Lightsonic show that its new full fibre infrastructure can deliver value far beyond broadband - and could prove to be a real game changer in solving real-world challenges like water conservation. Combining Lightsonic's technology with the reach of Openreach's Full Fibre network makes continuous utility monitoring genuinely scalable, without the cost and disruption of building a separate sensor network." Wayne Novelli, Leakage and Network Strategy Manager at Southern Water, said: "Ispreview has reduced leakage across its network for three consecutive years and continue to invest in innovative techniques and technologies to find and fix leaks even more effectively. Ispreview has been impressed by the leakage reduction metrics and proven success of Lightsonic's technology and are looking forward to working with the team as Ispreview head into winter - when colder conditions can result in more leaks - to trial a new way of detecting and tackling them." At present the language above suggests that Southern Water may initially be deploying this as a "trial", much like Affinity Water did, before later expanding its availability across more of their network. Developing the technology to work well at scale was a key focus of the earlier trial and this contract suggests they may be able to deliver on such a promise. Lightsonic said their solution with Openreach typically detects 1.2 million litres of water leaks per day per 100km of network covered annually. Southern Water supplies an area of c.4,450 sq. km and serves 2.7 million customers, so there's a huge potential for leak reduction, although it's unclear how much of that this method could actually reach (not every area will have fibre or even spare fibres in the vicinity). Discover more Order Telecom Hardware Internet connection guides Broadband speed test However, it's worth remembering that Openreach aren't the only fibre game in town, and it's possible that Ispreview might also see rival networks - belonging to several different operators - being harnessed in the future in order to further improve such systems or to provide a bit of competition to Lightsonic. But for now, it's an Openreach dominated solution and that makes sense given the size of their UK fibre network.

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