Cebit 09: Giving new meaning to shitty internet service.
Journalists often been accused of having their head in the gutter and today at CeBit was no exception as we stumbled across a company flogging its fibre optic sewer setup offerings.
Fibre Access By Sewage Tube (FAST) is a Swiss firm which boasts the ability to convert most standard sewage systems (man entry and no-man entry) into a super-fast information highway.
The system includes a specially-designed sewer robot made from bits of teenage mutant ninja turtles and stainless steel to hold conduits in place using adjustable clamps. Fibre optic cables run through the conduits which then deliver a load of digital crap to your home computer via the Internet.
FAST reckons its tech offers cities an environmentally friendly and cost efficient way of bringing the interdribble to people's homes, using existing infrastructure, which can be easily upgraded for the purpose.
Enabling the installation of a protective conduit network for fibre optic cables is apparently simply a matter of getting a CCTV robot to check whether your pipes aren't too clogged, a bout of cleaning using a high pressure jet machine and a touch of "rehabilitation work".
Not such a crappy idea if you think about, as long as no one takes a very large dump.
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Issue: 133 | February, 2012