Dura-Line’s Business Development Manager, Kevin Jolly, was recently invited to participate in the Canadian Rural & Remote Community (CRRBC) Eastern Conference. We caught up with Kevin to get his impressions of the event and to find out more about his topic – distributed fibre optic sensing – and its potential impact in Canada.
Why was it important for Dura-Line to participate in CRRBC Eastern Canada?
CRRBC is a forum for community leaders, rural advocates, and service providers on the challenges of rural and remote broadband implementation. Rural broadband business cases can be the hardest to prove, particularly in Canada, because of the low subscriber density and the cost to build out to remote communities. Even though demand for connectivity in these communities is typically incredibly strong, the new fibre network often needs to be multi-use to make the numbers work.
The conduit solutions that Dura-Line provides are inherently multi-use. Our large conduits can be subdivided with smaller pathways, and our MicroDuct bundles give you a multi-path, multi-use network by default, all for a single installation cost. This gives any community – but particularly rural and remote communities – the flexibility to use that fibre for any number of connected applications, according to their unique needs.
We have experience of helping customers all around the world to get the most out of their digital infrastructure. One of the ways our partners have been doing this is via something called distributed fibre optic sensing. We came to CRRBC Eastern Canada this year to spread the word about this game-changing technology.
What is fibre optic sensing?
It’s a technology that turns an individual fibre stand within an optical cable into a sensor. A device known as an interrogator monitors that fibre by sending pulses of light along its length, detecting any changes in the light. External factors like temperature, strain, or vibration can be monitored in this way. This makes it an incredibly versatile technology with virtually countless applications in a massive array of industries. Every metre of the fibre can be used to continuously monitor vehicle movement, human traffic, digging, seismic activity, temperatures, liquid and gas leaks, and many other things. This means it can help utility infrastructure owners monitor the health of their assets, public transportation authorities to avert disasters before they happen, and cities to operate more efficiently and sustainably.
Did you share any success stories with the audience?
Yes, two!
The first was a project with an oil and gas customer here in Canada. In some cases, gas lines can run for thousands of kilometres, so monitoring them with people or individual sensors would not be practical. But we developed a bundle with two MicroDucts under an oversheath, which our customer attached to their pipeline, allowing them to detect leaks along the entire length via fibre optic sensing, with an extra empty pathway for the future.
The second was the work we’ve done in the world of transportation. In 2023, the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT), in collaboration with Dura-Line and Luna Innovations, conducted a field trial to assess how emerging smart road technologies could help them better monitor vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic patterns and crashes, monitor for natural hazards common to Utah like avalanches and rockfalls, and provide better utility protection at the same time. We were delighted when the project was awarded Project of the Year by the Fiber Optic Sensing Association (FOSA), and I know our learnings from this trial can be applied right across Canada.