5 Things You Should Know About Dark Fiber

1. It’s all about the money.

The primary reason why organizations begin investigating dark fiber is for the potential cost savings. “If your organization has a lot of data that they need to move around or if you happen to already have access to dark fibers for little or no cost, it will save you a lot of money to bring up your own dark fiber network as opposed to paying thousands or tens of thousands of dollars a month to CenturyLink or Comcast or some other Internet provider,” said Coenen.

2. Dark fiber can also improve latency.

Another benefit of dark fiber is the potential speed. Whenever an organization is using commercial Internet service, traffic gets bounced around to a lot of different points before arriving at its destination. But with dark fiber, organizations can get a straight line from point A to point B, which improves performance.

“For some applications, people really need to get the data really fast from one spot to another,” said Coenen. “And the best way to do that is to set up your own network where you don't have a lot of additional boxes sitting in between.”

3. Dark fiber can provide redundancy.

An even more important benefit for some organizations is the fact that dark fiber can provide physical redundancy for their existing systems. Coenen explained that enterprises often find that even if they are using two different providers as part of their disaster recovery/business continuity (DR/BC) plans, both providers may rely on some of the same physical infrastructure. So in the case of a natural disaster or even something as simple as a construction accident or burst water main, they may lose both their primary connectivity and their backup at the same time.

“If they find that they’re not really able to get good redundancy from their Internet provider, they will run their own fiber links to make sure that they’re getting this type of physical redundancy," he said.

4. Dark fiber does require some expertise.

When asked about the disadvantages of dark fiber, Coenen acknowledged that it does have some drawbacks. The upfront costs can be high. In addition, organizations will need trained personnel. “You need to keep people on staff who know how to manage the system, expand it when it needs to be expanded or repair it to something goes down. So that can be a lot of hidden costs,” he said.

5. You shouldn’t be afraid of dark fiber.

Despite the potential disadvantages, Coenen encourages organizations to investigate whether dark fiber might be right for their needs. “Don’t be afraid to do it,” he said. “People find the idea of dark fiber links or setting up a DWDM connection very intimidating, but lots and lots of other governments and enterprises have done this.”

He advised network architects managers interested in dark fiber to reach out to other colleagues and to transport vendors for tips and training. “There are lots of resources out there,” he added.

 This article was originally published on   -------------------------More info