What is Dark Fiber?

A dark fiber network or simply dark network is a privately operated optical fiber network that is run directly by its operator over leased dark fiber or purchased from another supplier. This is in contrast to purchasing bandwidth or leased line capacity on an existing network.

Why Would a Company Buy Dark Fiber?

A client will lease unused strands of dark fiber optic cable to create their own privately-operated optical fiber network rather than just leasing bandwidth. The Dark Fiber network is separate from the main network and is controlled by the client rather than the network provider. These networks can be set up in a variety of ways, including dark fiber rings, point to point or point-to-multipoint configurations. A client can expect to get high levels of performance, a highly secure network and superfast speeds. Dark fiber is the best solution for businesses that are growing exponentially or have high speed connection requirements. This allows organizations to customize their network performance as well as increase their bandwidth without having to coordinate with their network provider.

Pros and Cons

PROS:

• Networks can be scaled according to the size of your organization or bandwidth needs.
• Full control of the fiber optic network.
• Latency can be managed very effectively.
• Tighter network security.

CONS:

• Higher operations cost than regular telecom services.
• Longer maintenance hours due to complexity of the network and equipment.
• After a certain amount of years there has to be a scheduled maintenance check on the entire dark fiber line ensuring that it is up to capacity.

Case Study: How We Can Help

A client was in need of two diverse dark fiber carriers that would be able to connect one of their buildings at headquarters to a brand-new data center facility, which was 12-miles away from HQ. With the tools and resources we have access to, in 24 hours we found two diverse dark fiber carriers within the area. One carrier being a regional fiber provider and the other a national carrier who are both able to provide dark fiber to our client. We negotiated a competitive price both with the regional carrier and national carrier providing more of a OPEX model which they required. We had the NRC rolled into the MRC for the term of the contract.