Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
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Our journey beings in September 1991, when a high-tech communications link was completed through Calderdale on the Rochdale Canal, following a route pioneered more than two centuries earlier.
At this time, the project was thought to be the first time a canal route was utilised for telecommunications.
The company was no other than Mercury Communications and it completed its new cable route between Leeds and Manchester, with much of it under the towpath of the Rochdale Canal.
The cable route started in Manchester and ran about 30 miles under the towpath before leaving the Rochdale Canal at Sowerby Bridge for the last 20 miles alongside the road to Leeds.
British Waterways now had its eyes on a much larger scheme of their own.
Fibreway was launched on March 9th, 1994, and its job was to create a telecommunications network alongside Britain's thousands of miles of canals.
The four-year project saw special tunnelling devices, called moles, being used to burrow out the new conduits, dragging miles of cable behind them.
By Christmas 1997, 600 miles or 965km of fibre-optic cable was laid along the canal towpaths with the goal to create a complete figure of eight configuration, linking the UK’s major cities with Birmingham at the centre.
The figure of 8 covered London, Woking, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Warrington, Gloucester, Manchester, Bristol, Nottingham and any other major towns and cities along the way.
► Buy me a coffee: paypal.me/ringwaymanchester
► Join this channel to get access to perks:
youtube.com/channel/UC67TJP9i84zbCi2h1aaSO6Q/join
► Email: ringwaymanchester@mail.com
► Instagram: instagram.com/m3hhyofficial
► Facebook: facebook.com/M3HHY
► Twitter: twitter.com/OfficialM3HHY
Our journey beings in September 1991, when a high-tech communications link was completed through Calderdale on the Rochdale Canal, following a route pioneered more than two centuries earlier.
At this time, the project was thought to be the first time a canal route was utilised for telecommunications.
The company was no other than Mercury Communications and it completed its new cable route between Leeds and Manchester, with much of it under the towpath of the Rochdale Canal.
The cable route started in Manchester and ran about 30 miles under the towpath before leaving the Rochdale Canal at Sowerby Bridge for the last 20 miles alongside the road to Leeds.
British Waterways now had its eyes on a much larger scheme of their own.
Fibreway was launched on March 9th, 1994, and its job was to create a telecommunications network alongside Britain's thousands of miles of canals.
The four-year project saw special tunnelling devices, called moles, being used to burrow out the new conduits, dragging miles of cable behind them.
By Christmas 1997, 600 miles or 965km of fibre-optic cable was laid along the canal towpaths with the goal to create a complete figure of eight configuration, linking the UK’s major cities with Birmingham at the centre.
The figure of 8 covered London, Woking, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Warrington, Gloucester, Manchester, Bristol, Nottingham and any other major towns and cities along the way.
