Lightsonic spoke to the BBC last week about detecting water leaks using fibre optic cables.

Lightsonic is building Utility Infrastructure Intelligence. Across the world, critical infrastructure networks are vast, complex, and largely invisible once they are underground. Water utilities operate thousands of kilometres of pipelines that are difficult to monitor continuously, making leak detection slow and resource intensive. Lightsonic transforms existing telecom fibre networks into a sensing layer for utilities. By combining distributed fibre sensing with continuous machine learning, we detect and classify leak signals across large parts of water networks and provide clear points of interest for field teams. Our first focus is network-scale water leak detection, helping utilities detect more leaks across larger sections of the network and reduce water loss more effectively. Lightsonic is already deployed in operational networks. Working with Affinity Water and Openreach in the UK, the system is monitoring hundreds of kilometres of infrastructure and has detected dozens of previously unknown leaks. But leak detection is only the starting point. The same sensing capability can provide ongoing insight into the condition of infrastructure networks. Over time, this enables utilities to understand their systems more clearly, prioritise interventions more effectively, and respond faster to emerging issues. This is the future we are building toward: Utility Infrastructure Intelligence. Start with leaks. Build toward infrastructure intelligence.

Founded 2024