Sempra Gets Telecom OK

California energy regulators Thursday approved a novel plan to place fiber optic telephone and television cables inside natural gas pipelines serving homes and offices in Southern California.

The decision by the California Public Utilities Commission allows telecommunications and cable television companies to install their lines in gas pipelines operated by Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., subsidiaries of San Diego-based Sempra Energy.

The project is believed to be the largest application in the United States of technology merging fiber optic cable with underground gas lines, said Mike Clover, president of the Sempra Fiber Links subsidiary.

CPUC President Michael Peevey called the plan “an exciting new technology that can go the last mile to the customer” without the need to dig up the streets -- especially in built-up urban areas -- to install new lines.

The cable can be inserted into a tube placed inside existing underground gas lines serving homes and businesses by cutting “small incisions in the streets,” Peevey said.

Clover said the technology has been tested in small projects in Long Beach and in North Carolina and Texas.