Southern Water taps fiber network to sniff out leaky pipes
Southern Water is trialing a technology from Lightsonic that utilizes existing fiber-optic cables to detect underground water leaks. The system analyzes light vibrations in the cables to identify leaks, helping engineers locate and repair them more efficiently. This initiative aims to reduce water loss and improve drought resilience in southern England, which is currently facing severe water stress.
- ▪Southern Water is using Lightsonic technology to turn Openreach's fiber-optic network into sensors for leak detection.
- ▪The system uses machine learning to distinguish leak vibrations from background noise like traffic and roadworks.
- ▪Lightsonic claims the technology is already preventing the loss of over four million liters of water daily across 650 km of the UK network.
- ▪Southern Water adopted the trial after a record-breaking hot and dry summer left much of England under drought conditions.
- ▪The utility recently faced significant fines for pollution incidents, including a £2.4 million penalty for pollution in Kent.
- ▪tags
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| Original publisher | The Register |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theregister.com/networks/2026/09/23/southern-water-taps-fiber-network-to-sniff-out-leaky-pipes/5298527 |
| Publication time | Wed, 23 Sep 2026 13:29:00 +0200 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-23T11:29:30.682Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-23T11:29:30.682Z |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
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| Cluster | tKbQCzjogRXH · 1 stories |
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| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
(function() { let windowUrl = window.location.href; windowUrl = windowUrl.substring(windowUrl.indexOf('?') + 1); let messageElement = document.querySelector('.shareableMessage'); if (windowUrl && windowUrl.includes('code') && windowUrl.includes('expires')) { messageElement.style.display = 'block'; } })(); networks Southern Water taps fiber network to sniff out leaky pipes Another utility sees the light in putting existing telecoms infrastructure to work Dan Robinson Dan Robinson IT INFRASTRUCTURE REPORTER Published wed 23 Sep 2026 // 12:29 UTC READ MORE Google DeepMind rises above the AI scrum with genome atlas 14 days ago Changing AI math could reduce the hardware burden, researchers show June 30, 2026 AI inference just plays by different rules May 4, 2026 Yes, you can build an AI agent…
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