BOURNEMOUTH could become the UK's first "fibre town" this autumn with super-fast broadband services being delivered via the sewers.

Fibre firm H20 says consumers in Bournemouth, Northampton or Dundee will be offered the super-fast service first.

With speeds of 100mbps (megabits per second), it could give consumers access to services such as high definition TV and computer gaming and fast, DVD quality movie downloads.

While BT has pledged to provide all new housing estates in the UK with fibre connections, it has not yet made clear its plans for existing homes.

The current telecommunications system was never designed to carry data and many have called for an urgent fibre upgrade.

At the end of last year Virgin Media announced that it would be upgrading its entire cable network which covers half of UK homes by 2009.

Antony Walker, head of the UK's Broadband Stakeholder's Group, cautioned that the H20 scheme could not in itself create a "fibred Britain".

But Elfed Thomas from H20 is confident that its mega-fast service will have instant appeal for consumers.

He said: "We are talking here about fibre speed; not that dreaded word broadband."

The service will be delivered to individual homes via a four-inch box attached to the house.

Bournemouth, Northampton and Dundee have been selected because H20 has already installed its fibre service to local council buildings.

The sewer-based fibre takes advantage of existing ducting meaning there is no need for expensive and disruptive road digging, making the system faster and cheaper to deliver.

Mr Thomas added: "While deploying traditional fibre over a two-kilometre area would be six to 12 months in the planning we can do it in four hours."

Roll-out in the chosen town will begin in September and take 18 months to complete.

H20 hope to provide a similar service in another 14 towns in the next five years.